COUNTR 


IC-NRLF 


SB 


3fl3 


Warren  G,  Harding 

O 


OUR 
COMMON  COUNTRY 

Good  Will  in  ^America 


By 

WARREN  G.  HARDING 


WITH  FOREWORD  BY  THE  EDITOR 

FREDERICK  E.  SCHORTEMEIER 

Author  of  Rtdedicating  America 


INDIANAPOLIS 

THE  BOBBS-MERRILL  COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 


COPYRIGHT   1921 

TUE  BOBBS-MERRILL  COMPANY 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


or 

BRAUNWORTH    &    CO. 

BOOK   MANUFACTURE* 

BROOKLYN.    N.    V. 


FOKEWOKK 

UNDER  the  leadership  of  Presicbnt 
Harding,  America  is  at  the  threshold  of 
an  era  of  good  will.  Several  of  our  presi 
dents  have  performed  greater  services 
for  America  than  befell  their  lot  as  its 
chief  executive  in  an  administrative  capac 
ity  by  leading  in  the  development  of  the 
moral  forces  of  our  country.  Har ding's 
greatest  service  to  his  country  at  home 
will  come  in  the  awakening  of  the  Amer 
ican  conscience  toward  the  mutual  good 
will  of  Americans,  one  for  the  other.  He 
would  end  the  day  of  jealous  rivalries,  of 
class  detriment,  of  group  supremacy,  of 
greed,  and  lead  the  way  in  making  popu 
lar  throughout  America  understanding, 
cooperation  and  good  will  toward  men. 

Warren  Harding  has  already  become 
known  to  the  American  people  as  a  strong 
nationalist  in  international  relations.  It 

4C535S 


FOREWORD" 

is  the  purpose  in  this  volume  to  give  to 
the  American  people  in  the  president's 
own  words  his  conception  of  the  proper 
course  for  the  people  of  America  in  their 
domestic  relations.  Just  as  Harding  has 
taken  the  leadership  in  the  preservation 
of  the  nationality  of  the  United  States,  so 
he  will  come  to  be  known  as  the  foremost 
advocate  of  a  national  appeal  toward  a 
common  understanding,  a  mutuality  of 
interests  on  the  part  of  all  the  American 
people,  the  end  of  class  consciousness, 
and  the  prosperity  and  happiness  of  all 
Americans,  everywhere. 

Those  Americans  who  seek  the  day  of 
a  more  widely  applied  good  will  in  Amer 
ica,  who  fervently  hope  for  the  time  when 
no  group  of  our  people  will  place  its  own 
interests  above  the  common  weal  of  all 
the  people  where  the  interests  conflict, 
will  find  in  Harding  their  stanchest  advo 
cate.  This  fundamental  conception  of 
the  proper  American  relationship  is 


FOKEWORD 

shown  in  everything  Harding  thinks  and 
says  and  does.  Harding  hopes  for  the 
utter  abolition  of  class.  He  seeks  to 
encourage  the  fullest  cooperation  by 
preaching  the  gospel  of  understanding. 
His  great  purpose  -is  to  construe  and 
develop  the  desire  for  a  common  good  for 
tune  in  America.  "I  wish  it  distinctly 
noted,"  said  the  president,  shortly  after 
his  nomination,  "that  I  shall  say  nothing 
to  one  group  of  fellow  citizens  which  I 
could  not  as  cordially  utter  to  another. 
So  far  as  I  can  be  helpful  it  shall  be  along 
the  line  of  promoting  the  good  fortunes 
of  all  the  American  people.  We  can  not 
prosper  one  group  and  imperil  another. 
We  can  not  have,  we  must  not  have,  a 
menacing  class  consciousness  in  America. 
I  like  to  think  of  an  America  where  every 
citizen's  pride  in  power  and  resources,  in 
influence  and  progress,  are  founded  in 
what  can  be  done  for  our  people,  all  the 


FOREWORD 

people.  Good  Government  means  the 
welfare  of  all  of  its  citizens." 

Harding  seeks  in  America  the  applica 
tion  of  those  simple  virtues  in  our  national 
life  which  are  essentially  necessary  to  the 
life  of  a  successful  individual.  He  is 
sounding  the  call  for  the  application  of 
the  common  weal.  He  looks  forward  to 
the  day  when  no  class  of  our  people  will 
seek  to  advance  its  own  interests  to  the 
detriment  of  all  the  people.  He  wants  a 
contented,  prosperous,  happy  America  in 
which  every  individual  and  every  group 
of  individuals  will  desire  in  good  con 
science  to  aid  and  prosper  the  lot  of  all 
other  Americans. 

This  volume  seeks  to  present  to  the 
American  public  the  views  of  their  presi 
dent  upon  numerous  phases  of  American 
life,  and  would  show  that  in  addition  to 
entertaining  definite  ideas  for  the  ad 
vancement  of  the  welfare  of  our  varied 
groups  of  citizens,  Harding  hopes  to  point 


FOREWORD 

the  way  toward  the  mutual  good  fortune 
of  all  Americans.  He  would  prosper  the 
farmer,  the  business  man,  the  laborer,  as 
such,  to  the  fullest  possible  extent,  but 
only  so  far  as  is  consistent  with  the  wel 
fare  of  all  other  Americans.  He  is  ready 
to  lead  in  that  most  vital  and  timely 
American  undertaking  which  has  for  its 
purpose  the  end  of  classism  and  the 
development  of  all  that  is  good  for  all 
Americans,  under  all  circumstances,  in 
all  walks  of  life  and  in  every  conceivable 
situation. 

Harding  proclaims  anew  the  equality 
of  opportunity.  From  his  own  life's  ex 
periences,  he  knows  whereof  he  speaks. 
He  acclaims  individual  and  personal  hon 
esty  as  the  greatest  of  all  American  assets. 
He  hopes  for  an  American  reconsecration 
to  faith  in  God.  He  longs  for  the  day 
when  every  American  genuinely  and  sin 
cerely  wishes  well  for  every  other  Ameri 
can  citizen.  He  aspires  to  develop  in 


FOREWORD 

America  a  contented,  happy  people,  who 
find  their  delight  in  their  belief  in  and 
devotion  to  good  will  for  all  Americans. 
To  him  every  American  life  is  sacred  and 
is  entitled  to  the  fullest  opportunity  for 
development.  "If  a  wise  God  notes  a 
sparrow's  fall,  no  life  can  be  so  obscure 
and  humble  that  it  shall  become  of  no  con 
sequence  to  America,"  is  Har ding's  con 
ception.  He  seeks  the  best  and  the  most 
for  every  human  who  has  been  fortunate 
enough  to  come  beneath  the  folds  of  the 
American  flag. 

Besides  his  consuming  desire  for  the 
common  weal  in  America,  Harding  has 
very  definite  ideas  for  its  development. 
He  wants  a  common  understanding  be 
tween  employer  and  employee.  He 
desires  the  promotion  of  those  measures 
which  make  better  the  lot  of  American 
women  and  children,  which  feed  and 
clothe  our  unfortunates  and  which  buoy 
their  spirits.  He  encourages  play  and 


FOREWORD 

urges  honest  work.  He  delights  in  the 
enthusiasms  of  accomplishment.  He 
would  have  a  normal  America  in  which 
those  rigid  American  virtues  of  honesty, 
understanding,  cooperation  and  good  will 
are  popular  among  Americans. 

As  president  of  the  United  States  he 
would  lead  to  "  where  every  one  plays  his 
part  with  soul  and  enthusiasm,  no  matter 
how  insignificant  that  part  may  be,  so 
that  out  of  the  grouped  endeavor  comes 
the  perfect  offering."  Harding  is  ready 
to  lead  the  moral  forces  of  America  in  the 
further  development  of  our  common 
country,  in  the  establishment  of  mutual 
good  will  in  America. 

F.  E.  S. 

Indianapolis. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTEB       x  PAGE 

I 


II 

BUSINESS  AND  GOVERNMENT       .     . 

.     .       19 

III 

THE  INSPIRATION  OF  LABOR 

.     .       35 

IV 

AMERICAN  AGRICULTURE     .... 

.     .       63 

v 

WHAT  OF  OUR  CHILDREN 

.     .     109 

VI 

THE  PRESS  AND  THE  PUBLIC 

.     .     117 

VII 

THE  THEATER    

.     .     131 

VIII 

AMERICAN   EDUCATION        .... 

.      .     145 

IX 

THE  IMMIGRANT 

.     .     157 

X 

CONSERVATION  AND  DEVELOPMENT     . 

.     .     173 

XI 

.     .     197 

XII 

THE  VALUE  OF  PLAY 

.     .     225 

XIII 

FRATERNITY    

.      .     235 

XIV 

THE  VILLAGE       

.     .     249 

XV 

Two    WARS        

.      .     257 

XVI 

THE  MEANING  OF  THE  ARMISTICE 

.     .     263 

XVII 

THE  FEDERAL  CONSTITUTION       .     . 

.     .     271 

XVIII 

THE  NATIONAL  CONSCIENCE    . 

297 

EECONSECRATION  TO  GOD 


A  MESSAGE  AND  A  DEDICATION 


OUR 
COMMON  COUNTRY 

«" 

CHAPTER  I 

KECONSECEATIOlSr  TO  GOD 

I  DO  not  believe  there  is  any  other  influ 
ence  so  much  needed  in  a  tumultuous 
world  as  a  reconsecration  to  God  Al 
mighty.  I  rejoice  that  America  is  free  in 
religion.  We  boast  our  civil  liberty  and 
our  political  independence,  but  when  we 
contemplate  world  conditions  to-day  the 
best  thing  in  this  Republic  is  religious 
freedom. 

Sometimes  I  think  the  world  has  gone 
adrift  from  its  moorings  religiously,  and 
I  know  it  will  help  if  we  have  a  revival  of 
13 


14  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY! 

religious  faith.  I  want  a  government  that 
is  just,  and  I  don't  think  a  government 
can  be  just  if  it  does  not  have  somehow  a 
contact  with  Omnipotent  God. 

I  know  how  some  of  you  of  the  church 
have  been  quite  carried  away  by  the  pro 
posal  of  a  new  world  relationship.  You 
never  stopped  to  think  that  in  the  concep 
tion  of  Versailles  there  was  no  recogni 
tion  of  God  Almighty.  Just  as  we  of 
America  have  builded  by  recognizing 
Him,  the  best  relationship  of  the  world 
must  be  builded  upon  recognition  of  the 
same  God. 

I  have  every  faith  that  our  nation  will 
take  its  fitting  place  in  an  association  of 
nations  for  world  peace,  and  I  believe 
that  we  are  going  to  be  able  to  do  it  with 
out  the  surrender  of  anything  we  hold 
dear  as  a  heritage  of  the  American  people. 

I  don't  like  to  talk  about  religion,  just 
for  the  sake  of  conversation,  but  I  do 
believe  that  we  need  more  of  it  in  our 


RECONSECRATION  TO  GOD  15 

American  life,  more  of  it  in  government, 
— the  real  spirit  of  it.  I  think  there 
should  be  more  of  the  "Do  unto  others  as 
you  would  be  done  by"  spirit  of  service. 

It  might  interest  you  to  know  that, 
while  I  have  always  been  a  great  reader  of 
the  Bible,  I  have  never  read  it  so  closely 
as  in  the  last  weeks,  when  my  mind  has 
been  bent  upon  the  work  I  must  shortly 
take  up.  I  have  obtained  a  good  deal  of 
inspiration  from  the  Psalms  of  David  and 
from  many  passages  of  the  four  gospels, 
and  there's  still  wisdom  in  the  sayings  of 
old  Solomon. 

I  don't  intend  to  come  as  the  finest 
exemplar  of  what  we  ought  to  be,  but  I 
rejoice  in  the  inheritance  of  a  religious 
belief  and  I  don't  mind  saying  that  I 
gladly  go  to  God  Almighty  for  guidance 
and  strength  in  the  responsibilities  that 
are  coming  to  me. 


BUSINESS  AND  GOVERNMENT 

A  MESSAGE  FOR  BUSINESS  MEN" 


CHAPTER  II 

BUSINESS  AND  GOVERNMENT 

WE  are  the  great  business  nation  of  the 
world.  We  shall  be  able  to  save  that  busi 
ness  and  prosper  it  by  a  fair  measure  of 
common  sense,  and  we  ought  and  must  do 
it.  We  will  preserve  a  willingness  to 
listen  to  the  will  of  the  people,  and  will 
construe  the  desire  for  a  common  good 
fortune  to  mean  the  necessary  good  for 
tune  of  business,  which  is  the  life-blood  of 
material  existence. 

American  business  is  not  big  business. 
Wilful  folly  has  been  in  those  persons  in 
distended  power  over  our  national  affairs 
who  have  spoken  of  American  business  as 
if  it  were  a  large  and  selfish  interest  seek- 

19 


20  OUK  COMMON  COUNTRY 

ing  special  privileges,  and  who,  on  that 
basis,  have  put  their  bungling  hands  upon 
its  throat  and  tried  tinkering  and  experi 
menting  with  it,  and  abusing  it  and  treat 
ing  it  with  suspicion.  Let  us  put  an  end 
to  holding  success  to  be  a  crime. 

It  will  be  the  American  people  who  will 
do  this  because  American  business  is 
everybody's  business.  Nearly  nine-tenths 
of  those  who  depend  for  their  living  and 
the  legitimate  fruits  of  their  labors  in 
American  manufacturing  are  the  wage- 
earners.  The  blow  directed  at  American 
business,  the  pulling  and  hauling  of 
American  business  by  weird  economic  and 
social  theories,  is  less  menacing,  for 
instance,  to  the  one-tenth  who  in  manu 
facturing  are  business  executives  than  it 
is  to  the  nine-tenths  who  are  our  Ameri 
can  laborers. 

The  big  business  of  America  is  the  little 
business  of  America.  The  last  available 
census  figures  show  that  more  than  sixtj; 


BUSINESS  AND  GOVERNMENT  21 

per  cent,  of  our  factories  were  little 
plants,  none  of  which  turned  out  more 
than  $100,000  of  products.  Only  twenty- 
five  per  cent,  of  our  plants  were  even 
doing  business  as  corporations.  The 
average  number  of  workers  employed  was 
twenty-five.  When  we  come  to  analyze 
what  we  mean  by  American  business  we 
find  out  that  we  mean  the  daily  work  of 
the  nation,  most  of  it  undertaken  in  the 
factory  and  on  the  farm  in  small  units. 
We  find  out  that  we  even  mean  the  busi 
ness  of  the  home  and  of  the  housewife, 
and  that  American  business  is  every 
body's  business.  It  is  more  than  that.  It 
is  the  work  of  every  worker,  clothes  for 
his  back,  food  for  his  mouth. 

We  must  face  the  new  task.  We  have 
had  a  fever  of  high  prices  and  excessive 
production  out  of  the  sacrificed  billions 
of  treasure  and  millions  of  lives,  but  the 
reconstruction  must  be  sober  business, 
founded  on  unchanging  principle.  We 


22  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

must  summon  the  best  abilities  of  Amer 
ica  to  put  America  back  on  the  main  road, 
and  to  remove  the  debris  of  the  last  eight 
years,  and  to  keep  our  industries  running, 
and  to  restore  the  proper  ratio  of  pros 
perity  to  our  American  agriculture  so  that 
it  can  again  bid  for  good  American  stand 
ard  labor. 

If  our  memory  is  directed  again  to  1914, 
we  will  recall  that  world  war  alone  saved 
us  from  a  disaster  in  peace.  We  were 
sharpening  our  wits  in  competition  with 
the  world,  as  the  President  then  expressed 
it,  but  we  dulled  our  capacity  to  buy,  then 
war  saved  us  psychologically  and  com 
mercially;  but  to-day  we  are  at  peace, 
actual  though  not  proclaimed,  and  our 
problems  are  the  problems  of  peace, 

We  must  always  exact,  from  ourselves 
and  our  business,  high,  honorable  and  fair 
dealing  by  law,  and  by  law's  rigid  enforce 
ment  when  necessary,  but  we  must  repeal 
and  wipe  out  a  mass  of  executive  orders 


BUSINESS  AND  GOVEKNMENT  23 

and  laws  which,  failing  to  serve  effec 
tively  that  purpose,  serve  only  to  leave 
American  business  in  anxiety,  uncer 
tainty  and  darkness. 

We  must  readjust  our  tariff,  and  this 
time  with  especial  regard  for  the  new 
economic  menace  to  our  American  agri 
culture  as. well  as  manufacturing. 

We  must  readjust  our  internal  taxa 
tion,  especially  the  excess  profits  tax,  to 
remove  the  burdens  it  imposes  upon  the 
will  to  create  and  produce,  whether  that 
will  is  the  will  of  the  big  corporation, 
of  the  small  corporation,  or  of  the 
individual. 

We  must  uproot  from  our  national  gov 
ernment  the  yearning  to  undertake  enter 
prises  and  experiments  which  were  never 
intended  as  the  work  of  our  government, 
which  have  proved  ineffective  to  a  point 
which  sickens  us  all,  and  which  our  gov 
ernment  is  incapable  of  performing  with 
out  wreckage  or  chaos.  Of  necessity  the 


24:  DUE  COMMON"  COUNTRY 

machinery  of  government  expands  as  we 
grow  in  numbers  as  a  people,  but  before 
government  expands  in  bureaucratic  con 
trol  of  business  its  sponsors  ought  first  to 
demonstrate  a  capacity  to  conduct  the 
business  of  the  government.  When  gov 
ernment  itself  has  a  budget  of  more  than 
three  billions  a  year,  in  times  of  peace,  it 
has  a  business  of  its  own  to  look  after — 
and  it  needs  looking  after — without  seek 
ing  new  fields  to  conquer  until  it  has 
proved  capacity  for  the  tasks  it  must 
perform. 

We  must,  instead  of  such  experiments, 
establish  a  closer  understanding  between 
American  government  and  American 
business,  so  that  one  may  serve  the  other, 
and  the  other  obey  and  seek  cooperation. 

We  must  give  government  cooperation 
to  business,  we  must  protect  American 
business  at  home,  and  we  must  aid  and 
protect  it  abroad  by  the  upbuilding  of  our 
merchant  marine,  and  a  restoration  of  our 


BUSINESS  AND  GOVERNMENT  25 

self-respecting  measure  of  American  pro 
tection  to  her  citizens  wherever  they  may 
go  upon  righteous  errands. 

We  must  build  our  economic  life  into 
new  strength  and  we  must  do  it  so  that  our 
prosperity  shall  not  be, the  prosperity  of 
profiteers  nor  of  special  privilege. 

We  must  do  it  so  that  abroad  we  are 
known  not  as  a  nation  strutting  under  a 
plumage  of  fine  words,  but  as  one  that 
knits  friendly  and  peaceful  relations  by 
the  shuttle  of  honorable  deeds. 

We  must  do  it  so  that  at  home  our  eco 
nomic  life  yields  opportunity  to  every 
man  not  to  have  that  which  he  has  not 
earned,  whether  he  be  the  capitalist  or  the 
humblest  laborer,  but  to  have  a  share  in 
prosperity  based  upon  his  own  merit, 
capacity  and  worth — under  the  eternal 
spirit  of  " America  First." 

American  business  has  suffered  from 
staggering  blows  because  of  too  much 
ineffective  meddling  by  government,  and 


26  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

it  is  equally  true  that  good  government 
has  almost  been  allowed  to  die  on  our 
hands,  because  it  has  not  utilized  the  first 
sound  principles  of  American  business. 

The  government  of  the  United  States, 
of  this  nation  of  ours,  which  should  be  an 
example  of  American  good  sense  and 
sound  organization,  has  been  allowed  to 
degenerate  into  an  inadequate  piece  of 
administrative  machinery.  While  we 
have  heard  preaching  to  all  the  nations  of 
the  earth,  which,  to  put  it  mildly,  has  been 
adequate  indeed,  the  back  of  our  leader 
ship  has  been  turned  on  the  bad  example 
we  have  set  before  the  world  in  the  con 
duct  of  our  own  affairs.  I  refer  only  to 
the  deplorable  impairment  which  has  been 
given  our  time-tested  democratic  institu 
tions  by  robbing  our  representative  gov 
ernment  of  its  place  in  our  republic  in 
order  to  fatten  administrative  authority 
and  replace  the  will  of  the  people  by  the 
will  of  the  wilf  ul. 


BUSINESS  AND  GOVERNMENT  27 

The  government  has  engaged  in  prodi 
gal  waste.  The  American  people  pay.  It 
has  kept  its  overstuffed  bureaus  and  de 
partments,  many  of  which  are  doing  over 
lapping  work,  in  a  prime  condition  of 
reckless  inefficiency.  The  American  peo 
ple  pay.  It  has  engaged  in  all  kinds  of 
costly  bungling  experiments  of  govern 
ment  management  and  ownership  of 
enterprises  which  other  management 
could  do  better.  The  American  people 
pay.  It  has  allowed  worthy  federal  em 
ployees,  particularly  those  who  are 
skilled,  such  as  chemists  and  agricultural 
experts,  to  go  so  badly  paid  by  the  govern 
ment  that  they  have  left  the  service.  The 
American  people  have  to  bear  the  cost.  It 
has  poured  forth  our  national  treasure 
into  the  yawning  emptiness  of  unpre- 
paredness  for  war  and  unpreparedness 
for  peace.  It  has  spent  our  money  and 
failed  to  do  business,  while  the  prodigal 
flow  went  on.  The  American  people  have 


28  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

paid,  and  are  paying.  With  a  return  to 
sanity  we  now  have  another  task  before 
us  in  making  the  administrative  part  of 
our  government  one  in  which  a  people, 
proud  of  its  abilities  in  business,  can 
take  pride. 

We  must  not  let  our  administrative 
government  crack  under  the  load  of  its 
new  burdens  or  those  that  our  future  may 
place  upon  it.  It  has  been  cracking  badly. 
To  repair  it  is  the  business  of  every 
American — not  only  because  of  pride,  but 
also  because  he  pays  for  it,  and  is  entitled 
to  good  government  without  waste. 

We  have  declared  for  a  system  of  plan 
ning  our  expenditures  so  that  overlapping 
and  leakage  and  inefficiency  shall  be 
revealed  before  they  occur.  This  national 
budget  plan  we  must  put  into  force. 

We  must  put  our  postal  service  upon  a 
new  basis,  and  extend  the  merit  system  in 
the  choice  and  promotion  of  federal 
employees. 


BUSINESS  AND  GOVEKNMENT  29 

We  must  not  only  lop  off  useless  jobs, 
but  we  must  so  reward  efficiency  and 
value  among  our  public  service  employees 
that  we  may  continue  to  have  their  loyalty 
because  we  have  given  decent  pay  and  the 
expectation  of  promotion  when  promo 
tion  is  earned. 

We  must  conduct  a  careful  scrutiny  of 
our  great  executive  departments  to  plan 
so  that  similar  labors  shall  not  be  dupli 
cated  and  so  that  similar  functions  shall 
be  grouped  and  not  scattered. 

We  must  go  to  men  who  know,  for 
advice  in  administrative  improvement; 
we  must  have  to  aid  us  more  men  trained 
in  agriculture,  more  technical  men,  more 
men  who  know  business  and  the  practises 
of  commerce  and  trade. 

I  look  upon  the  responsibility  of  an 
executive  as  being  based  first  of  all  upon 
his  ability,  together  with  that  of  capable 
men  called  to  execute.  An  executive  offi 
cer  of  any  other  than  government  business 


30  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

would  be  discharged  if  he  allowed  paraly 
sis  and  perversion  of  the  functioning  of 
that  business,  while  he  and  his  followers 
were  engaged  in  addressing  advice  to  the 
neighbors. 

Let  them  who  say  that  the  American 
people  are  not  awake  to  these  matters  take 
new  counsel.  The  government  is  the  peo 
ple's  business,  and  they  will  not  see  it 
broken  down.  The  government  is  the  con 
cern  of  every  American — of  every  man, 
woman  and  child.  We  are  shareholders 
in  it  and  we  are  looking  forward  with 
relief  to  an  end  of  mismanagement. 

This  great  federal  machine  has  grown 
up  in  a  century  of  haphazard  expansion, 
until,  as  recently  described,  it  resembles 
"an  antiquated  central  building  with  a 
large  number  of  surrounding  sheds  and 
cottages,  overcrowded  with  overlapping 
officials  and  saturated  with  methods  of 
organization  and  administration  fully 
fifty  years  behind  the  times." 


BUSINESS  AND  GOVERNMENT  31 

An  eminent  senator  once  said  he  could 
substitute  his  private  business  methods 
for  government  practises  and  save  hun 
dreds  of  millions.  It  was  thought  to  be 
true  when  he  said  it,  and  we  might  treble 
the  figures  for  the  saving  now. 

Here  in  America  we  have  developed  the 
most  proficient  and  most  efficient  types 
of  business  organization  and  administra 
tion  in  the  world;  they  have  shown  the 
greatest  capacity  for  administrative  vi 
sion.  We  mean  to  call  that  administra 
tive  quality  and  fitness  into  the  service  of 
the  government,  and  establish  an  advance 
in  government  business,  not  merely  talk 
about  government  progress. 

Conditions  are  calling,  capabilities 
await,  the  needs  are  urging  and  we  pledge 
a  new  order — a  business  government, 
with  business  efficiency,  and  a  business 
concern  for  public  approval. 


THE  INSPIRATION  OF  LABOR 

A  MESSAGE  FOB  THOSE  WHO  TOIL 


CHAPTEE  III 

THE  HSTSPIKATION  OF  LABOR 

LIFE  is  labor,  or  labor  is  life,  whichever 
is  preferred.  Men  speak  of  the  labor 
issue  as  paramount  or  imperious  or  criti 
cal — it  is  always  the  big  thing  because  it 
is  the  process  of  all  progress  and  attain 
ment,  and  has  been  since  the  world  began. 
The  advocate  of  excessively-reduced  peri 
ods  of  labor  simply  proposes  to  slow  down 
human  attainment,  because  labor  is  the 
agency  of  all  attainment.  If  by  some 
miracle  of  agreement  we  could  reduce  the 
hours  of  labor  to  four  per  day — I  speak  of 
labor  now  in  the  sense  of  that  which  is 
employed  for  pay — the  live,  progressive, 
civilization-creating,  progressive  labor 

35 


36  OUK  COMMON  COUNTKY 

would  have  to  go  on  working  twice  or 
thrice  that  time,  because  labor  is  the  fer 
ment  of  human  development.  No  one  will 
challenge  these  general  truths,  but  we  do 
have  a  conflict  of  opinion  as  to  how  labor 
shall  be  employed  and  the  measure  of  its 
compensation. 

I  wish  it  distinctly  noted  that  I  shall 
say  nothing  to  one  group  of  fellow  citi 
zens  which  I  could  not  as  cordially  utter 
to  another.  It  was  my  good  fortune  to 
have  a  call  from  a  committee  representing 
several  American  farm  organizations, 
and  I  told  them  frankly  I  preferred  to 
greet  them  as  fellow- Americans  rather 
than  farmers,  because  our  big  thought 
must  be  of  American  consumers,  they 
among  them.  They  were  concerned  in 
producing  food,  which  is  of  first  concern 
to  all  America.  I  am  thinking  of  indus 
trial  America,  that  industrial  America  in 
which  every  one  of  our  hundred  millions 
is  deeply  concerned,  and  the  good  fortune 


THE  INSPIRATION  OF  LABOR  37 

of  whose  workers  is  of  highest  interest  to 
our  people  as  a  whole. 

Do  not  let  any  one  ever  tell  you  that  any 
political  party  is  insensible  to  the  cause  of 
labor.  Parties  are  the  agencies  of  gov 
ernment,  and  men  who  assume  public 
responsibility  are  deeply  anxious  about 
the  common  weal.  Demagogues  or  agita 
tors,  most  of  whom  are  agitating  for  the 
profit  therein,  "Reds"  or  reactionaries, 
all  of  them  deny  the  high  intent  and  gen 
uine  concern  of  parties  and  government 
for  the  highest  good  fortunes  of  all  the 
people.  Frankly,  I  do  not  think  any 
party  is  indifferent  or  unmindful.  The 
only  difference  is  in  the  program  for  the 
greatest  good.  I  want  you  to  understand 
me  definitely.  So  far  as  I  can  be  helpful 
it  shall  be  along  the  line  of  promoting  the 
good  fortunes  of  all  the  American  people, 
because  in  common  good  fortune,  made 
secure,  we  have  the  field  in  which  to  worK 
to  adjust  the  distribution  of  rewards  to 


38  CUE  COMMON  COUNTRY 

the  highest  conception  of  fairness  and 
justice. 

Let  me  repeat  a  public  utterance  of 
mine.  Noting  the  advanced  ground 
reached  through  the  sufferings  and  sacri 
fices  of  the  World  "War,  I  said  we  contem 
plated  a  new  level,  a  new  order,  and  would 
never  return  to  the  old  pre-war  condi 
tions.  No  such  return  has  ever  been 
recorded  in  all  history.  I  spoke  of  high 
wages,  and  said  I  wished  the  existing  high 
scale  to  remain,  on  one  explicit  condition 
— that  for  the  high  wage,  the  American 
workman  shall  give  to  his  task  the  highest 
degree  of  efficiency.  There  isn't  any 
other  solution.  There  isn't  any  other  way 
to  keep  wages  high  and  lower  the  cost  of 
living  to  any  appreciable  degree. 

The  menace  of  the  present  day  is  inef 
ficient  production.  I  am  not  advocating 
the  driving,  slavish  period  of  toil,  which 
saps  men's  energies  and  oppresses  the 
spirit,  but  I  do  advocate  honest,  efficient 


THE  INSPIRATION  OF  LABOR  39 

return  for  proper  pay.  I  hold  that  the 
slacker,  the  loafer  on  the  job,  is  not  only 
the  greatest  obstacle  to  labor's  advance 
ment,  but  he  is  cheating  his  fellows  more 
than  he  does  his  employer.  The  workman 
who  deliberately  adds  to  costs  robs  a  fel 
low  workman  who  must  buy,  and  impedes 
the  way  to  that  ideal  condition  where 
wage  exceeds  the  cost  of  living,  and  there 
is  a  balance  for  the  bank  account,  for 
home  acquirement  and  indulgence  in 
amusement,  diversion  and  the  becoming 
luxuries  which  contribute  to  the  ideal  life. 
Let  no  one  beguile  you  with  dreams  of 
idleness,  of  the  passing  of  employment  or 
the  abolition  of  employer  and  employee. 
Life  without  toil,  if  possible,  would  be  an 
intolerable  existence.  Work  is  the  su 
preme  engagement,  the  sublime  luxury  of 
life.  And  there  will  be  employers  so  long 
as  there  is  leadership  among  men,  and 
there  will  be  employees  until  human  prog 
ress  is  paralyzed  and  the  development  of 


40  OUR  COMMON  COUNTKY 

human  kind  dies  on  one  common  altar  of 
mediocrity.  Our  problem  then  is  to  find 
the  high  order  of  employment,  the  ideal 
relationship,  the  conditions  under  which 
we  may  work  to  the  highest  attainment 
and  the  greatest  common  good  for  all 
concerned. 

It  is  utterly  false  to  assume  that  labor 
and  capital  are  in  deadly  conflict.  Such 
a  preachment  comes  from  those  who 
would  destroy  our  social  system.  More, 
these  two  elements  do  not  constitute  alone 
the  fabric  of  our  industrial  life,  and 
neither  of  them,  alone,  ever  added  to  the 
treasure  of  mankind.  The  element  of 
management  is  as  essential  to  present-day 
industrial  success,  amid  modern  complex 
ities,  as  breath  to  the  human  body.  And 
indissolubly  linked  with  these  three  is  the 
consuming  public. 

It  is  not  important  to  establish  which 
element  comes  first,  since  each  is  essential 
to  the  other.  We  do  know  that  labor,  the 


THE  INSPIRATION  OF  LABOR  41 

human  element,  is  of  deepest  public  con 
cern.  Hence  it  is  that  American  public 
opinion,  which  is  invariably  the  ruling 
force  in  popular  government,  when  delib 
erately  crystallized,  wishes  the  labor 
forces  to  be  satisfied.  Not  contented, 
because  contentment  is  the  awaiting  ave 
nue  to  paralysis,  but  so  satisfied  that 
there  is  a  soul  of  interest  in  all  our 
employments. 

The  deplorable  side  of  modern  indus 
try,  with  gigantic  factory  and  the  produc 
tive  machinery,  is  that  too  many  men  are 
toiling  like  machines  at  work.  There 
ought  to  be  more  in  a  day's  work  than  the 
mere  grind  and  the  pay  therefor,  even 
though  the  pay  is  generous.  Men  ought 
to  know  a  pride  in  the  thing  done.  There 
ought  to  be  inspiration  to  skill  and  glory 
in  accomplishment.  One  ought  to  have 
before  him  the  goal  of  being  best  in  his 
line.  The  mere  fulfillment  of  the  require 
ments  to  hold  a  job  never  made  superin- 


42  OTJR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

tendent  or  led  to  a  captaincy  in  all  the 
world  of  employment.  Contentment  with 
a  job,  with  eyes  riveted  on  pay  day,  with 
out  enthusiasm  to  accomplish  or  desire  to 
excel,  never  made  an  advance  for  any  man 
anywhere. 

The  big  inspiration  in  life  is  to  get  on. 
We  can  not  get  on  all  alike  or  be  regarded 
precisely  alike.  God  Almighty  never 
intended  it  to  be  so,  else  He  had  made  us 
all  alike.  But  we  may  get  on  according 
to  our  talent,  our  capacity,  and  our  indus 
try,  and  out  of  the  advancement  of  those 
who  lead,  must  come  higher  standards 
for  all. 

I  have  no  patience  with  those  who  com 
mend  the  levels  of  mediocrity.  That 
would  halt  the  whole  human  procession. 
I  can  read  the  aspirations  in  many  a 
breast.  Search  the  hearts  of  the  parent 
hood.  Fathers  and  mothers  are  thinking 
of  their  children,  and  they  want  them  to 
get  on.  They  often  deny  themselves  to 


THE  INSPIRATION  OF  LABOE  43 

educate  their  children  and  ultimately  find 
compensation  in  that  denial.  They  edu 
cate  so  that  sons  and  daughters  may  do 
better  than  they — it  is  the  natural  desire 
of  aspiring  life.  This  is  why  the  world 
advances.  This  is  the-  soul  of  advancing 
civilization.  When  men  tell  you  this  is 
the  privilege  of  the  few,  they  challenge 
your  intelligence.  It  is  the  opportunity 
of  all.  Not  all  avail  themselves,  but  the 
opportunity  beckons. 

I  have  seen  my  home  city  grow  from  the 
village  of  four  thousand  to  the  city  of 
thirty  thousand.  I  know  the  men  who 
are  the  captains  of  industry  and  the  com 
manders  of  trade  and  the  leaders  of 
finance.  I  have  associated  with  the  head 
of  one  great  concern  when  he  was  toiling 
for  seventy-five  cents  a  day  as  a  youth  in 
the  shops.  I  have  seen  another  at  the 
bench,  and  still  another  trying  to  make 
the  pay  envelope  meet  his  obligations.  I 
knew  one  bank  leader  as  the  boy  who 


r44  OUK  COMMON  COTTNTKY 

swept  out  and  did  the  chores,  another  as 
a  dollarless  farmer  boy,  another  as  a 
struggling  youth  no  more  favored  than 
the  poorest  boy.  What 's  the  explanation  ? 
Industry,  thrift,  love  of  work,  interest  in 
tasks,  ambition  to  get  on. 

I  wish  I  could  plant  the  gospel  of  loy 
alty  to  work  and  interest  in  accomplish 
ment.  It  is  the  ambition  to  succeed,  the 
determination  to  do  the  most  and  best — 
these  speed  men  on  to  the  heights.  The 
pity  is  that  we  do  not  have  enough  of  it 
under  modern  conditions.  There  is  too 
much  mechanical  grind,  too  little  contact 
between  employer  and  employee,  too  little 
understanding  of  their  mutuality  of 
interest  and  their  joint  triumph  in  suc 
cess.  I  hail  with  equal  satisfaction  the 
workman  who  has  pride  in  the  factory 
and  its  output,  and  the  employer  who  has 
pride  and  sympathetic  interest  in  his 
workmen.  I  want  to  stress  the  need  of 
pride.  There  is  little  enough  to  inspire 


THE  INSPIRATION  OF  LABOR  45 

under  our  modern  system,  and  I  want  to 
magnify  all  there  is.  And  above  all  else  I 
want  American  workmen  to  feel  that 
American  products  are  the  best  in  the 
world.  There  is  only  a  touch  of  satisfac 
tion  to  say  our  output. is  biggest,  but  it 
sets  the  heart  aglow  to  proclaim  Amer 
ica's  output  is  the  best. 

I  am  sorry  the  old,  intimate  contact 
between  employer  and  employee  is  gone. 
When  there  was  intimate  touch  there  was 
little  or  rare  misunderstanding.  I  wish 
we  could  have  the  intimacy  restored,  not 
in  the  old  way,  but  through  a  joint  com 
mittee  of  employers  and  employees,  not  to 
run  the  business,  but  to  promote  and 
maintain  the  mutuality  of  interest  and 
the  fullest  understanding.  Herein  lies 
the  surest  remedy  for  the  most  of  our  ills. 
Nay,  more,  I  will  put  it  more  strongly,  I 
have  spoken  the  preventive,  the  under 
standing  which  prevents  disputes,  or  set 
tles  them  on  the  spot. 


46  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

I  never  had  any  trouble  with  our  labor 
forces  in  the  printing  line,  though  our 
"boys  and  girls"  have  been  organized  for 
seventeen  years.  We  know  each  other 
pretty  well.  And  yet,  with  all  our  inti 
macy  and  our  freedom  from  disputes,  I 
may  not  understand  them  as  I  ought  nor 
do  they  understand  all  they  ought.  Let 
me  give  an  example,  because  it  will  illus 
trate  the  need  of  understanding.  The 
basic  material,  the  one  thing  we  must  have 
in  the  newspaper  business  is  print  paper. 
There  has  been  a  shortage  of  production 
and  the  market  has  been  wild.  We  con 
tracted  for  our  annual  supply,  but  we 
could  not  add  the  amount  necessary  to 
meet  our  normal  growth.  To  meet  the  vol 
ume  of  business  and  keep  all  our  men 
employed  we  had  to  buy  extra  print  paper 
as  best  we  could,  and  the  excess  above  the 
contract  cost  was  sufficient  to  pay  out 
three  hundred  dollars  additional  wage  to 
every  workman  in  the  shop.  But  we  were 


THE  INSPIRATION  OF  LABOR  47 

obliged  to  meet  so  excessive  an  outlay,  and 
could  not  pass  it  on  to  readers,  yet  no 
workman  had  to  bear  any  share  of  the 
strain.  Never  forget  that  there  are  two 
sides,  and  I  want  each  to  understand  the 
other.  I  want  employers  to  know  what  is 
in  the  hearts  of  the  workmen — their  aspi 
rations,  their  trials,  their  problems — all 
the  things  essential  to  concord  and  good 
spirit. 

To  be  specific,  the  need  of  to-day  is  the 
extension  by  employers  of  the  principle 
that  each  job  in  the  big  plant  is  a  little 
business  of  its  own.  The  reason  men  in 
modern,  specialized  industry  go  crazy 
from  lack  of  self-expression  is  that  they 
are  allowed  to  be  mere  mechanical  mo 
tion-makers.  They  ought  to  be  taught  by 
employers  the  significance  of  this  job — its 
unit  costs,  its  relations  to  other  opera 
tions,  the  ways  to  its  greater  efficiency. 
In  a  word  the  employer  owes  it  to  his  men 
to  make  them  feel  that  each  job  stops 


48  OTJB  COMMON  OOUOTBTi 

being  an  enemy  of  the  man  and  becomes 
his  associate  and  friend,  and  the  success 
achieved  opens  the  way  for  his  looked-f or 
advancement. 

The  world  is  thinking  about  means  to 
prevent  war  among  nations,  and  we 
approve,  and  share  the  aspiration.  But 
'America  is  also  thinking  about  prevent 
ing  industrial  conflict  and  all  attending 
waste,  suffering  and  anxiety.  The  matter 
has  become  of  interest  to  the  public,  even 
more  than  the  forces  engaged  in  any 
conflict. 

Our  observation  is,  as  an  eminent  labor 
leader  has  said,  that  "all  strikes  sooner  or 
later  are  settled  around  a  table ;  then  why 
not  get  around  a  table  before  the  strike 
begins?" 

We  can  not  have  compulsory  arbitra 
tion,  because  all  parties  must  consent  to 
establish  arbitration  and  enforce  its  con 
clusions.  I  think  we  can  have  and  ought 
lo  have,  voluntary  volitional  arbitration. 


0?HE  INSPIRATION  OF  LABOR  49 

The  best  thought  of  the  day  commends 
this  way  to  settlement. 

In  the  broad  sense  labor's  business  is 
selling  its  skilled  or  unskilled  endeavor, 
and  the  basic  cost  is  the  cost  of  living. 
What  labor  receives  over  and  above  cost 
of  living  is  pay  for  its  preparation,  and  a 
profit  for  its  inspiration. 

The  insistent  thought  is  to  add  to  this 
profit,  to  widen  the  difference  between 
mere  cost  and  the  wage  received.  All  the 
influence  and  the  organization  in  the 
world  will  not  equalize  a  living  cost  among 
a  hundred  millions.  Rentals,  until  home- 
owning  becomes  more  wide-spread — as  I 
hope  it  will  become  wide-spread — vary 
according  to  localities  and  conditions. 
The  wage  scale  which  contemplates  a 
rental  cost  in  one  place  might  be  wholly 
inadequate  to  meet  the  cost  in  another  and 
a  nationalized  scale  would  work  an  injus 
tice.  This  point  was  developed  in  the 
recent  railway  controversies,  and  proved 


50  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

some  very  real  grievances  which  the  peo 
ple  had  not  dreamed. 

This  brings  me  to  the  subject  of  railway 
legislation,  and  the  enactment  of  the  Cum- 

^g 

mins-Esch  Bill  restoring  the  railways  to 
the  lawful  owners.  We  owed  it  to  the  rail 
way  owners  to  restore  their  property, 
seized  for  war  service,  just  as  we  owe  the 
return  of  the  people's  money  invested  in 
government  loans.  In  free  and  thought 
ful  America  we  do  not  take  advantage  of 
war's  tumult  to  change  the  regular  order 
of  things.  I  am  well  aware  that  many 
earnest  railway  workers  and  advocates  of 
the  Socialist  plan  preferred  to  take  the 
railroads  and  put  them  under  the  opera 
tion  of  the  employees,  but  that  was  not 
keeping  faith  with  America  or  American 
promises.  We  were  honor  bound  to  make 
the  return.  I  favored  it  for  the  addi 
tional  reason  that  I  do  not  believe  in  gov 
ernment  ownership. 

The  government  must  do  many  things, 


THE  INSPIRATION  OF  LABOR  51 

but  it  has  enough  to  do  without  invading 
the  field  of  private  activity,  not,  at  any 
rate,  until  government  demonstrates  its 
capacity  for  efficiency. 

I  do  not  pretend  to  say  the  railway  act 
is  perfect ;  indeed,  I  know  it  is  not.  But 
Congress  was  dealing  with  a  problem  of 
first  importance,  and  it  had  to  speed  the 
legislation.  There  was  the  conflict  of 
many  minds  as  it  was  right  there  should 
be,  and  the  final  act  was  a  compromise. 
Nevertheless,  I  believe  it  to  be  a  good  law 
and  cordially  supported  it.  Many  rail 
way  labor  leaders  have  cried  out  against 
it,  but  I  can  only  wonder  why,  except  for 
the  fundamental  objection  to  the  release 
of  government  operation. 

Let  us  try  out  the  act  and  the  railway 
restoration  in  patience.  If  we  have  fallen 
short,  the  conscience  of  America  will 
sanction  every  modification  needed  to  aim 
at  perfection.  America  wants  her  rail 
way  workmen  justly  treated,  and  will  tol- 


52  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

erate  nothing  less,  and  America  wants  her 
honest  investments  properly  protected, 
with  justice  to  every  agency  employed 
in  this  great  machine  of  railway 
transportation. 

I  have  said  it  before,  and  I  repeat  it 
now,  I  want  the  American  railway  work 
ers  to  know  the  best  possible  working  con 
ditions  and  to  be  the  best  paid  in  the 
world.  Our  food,  our  activities,  our 
exchanges,  so  much  depend  on  the  great 
railway  operations,  and  above  all  else,  all 
who  travel  trust  their  lives  to  railway 
skill  and  fidelity.  Ours  ought  to  be,  and 
must  be,  the  best  in  the  world. 

I  believe  in  the  protective  policy  which 
prospers  America  first,  and  exalts  Amer 
ican  standards  of  wage  and  American 
standards  of  living  high  above  the  Old 
World.  We  had  little  thought  of  these 
things  during  the  war,  because  America 
was  exporting  instead  of  importing — 
shipping  out  instead  of  shipping  in — but 


THE  INSPIRATION  OF  LABOR  53 

it  will  soon  be  a  different  situation  in  the 
world  exchange.  I  do  not  object  to  hu 
manity  seeking  equalized  standards  of 
employment  and  living,  but  I  do  insist  on 
Old  World  standards  being  raised  to 
ours,  not  ours  lowered  to  the  Old  World. 

Our  enormous  balance  of  trade  with 
foreign  nations  is  fast  receding  and  peo 
ples  who  seek  recuperation  from  war's 
wastes  and  bankruptcy  are  expecting  to 
sell  to  us  to  recuperate,  because  our  peo 
ple  are  the  ablest  to  buy  in  all  the  world. 
One  must  admit  the  promise  of  a  cheaper 
cost  of  living  if  Europe's  cheaper-made 
merchandise  is  brought  to  our  markets. 
But  note  the  peril  to  labor!  If  we  buy 
abroad,  we  will  slacken  production  at 
home,  and  slackened  production  means 
diminished  employment,  and  growing 
idleness  and  all  attending  disappoint 
ments.  I  want  to  cheapen  the  cost  of  liv 
ing  as  much  as  any  one  in  all  the  land,  but 
I  do  not  wish  it  cheapened  by  the  pro- 


54  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

cesses  of  unemployment  and  lowered 
standards  of  American  labor. 

Pray,  do  not  even  believe  you  are  injur 
ing  yourself  by  giving  full  return  for 
your  employment.  The  call  is  for  maxi 
mum  production,  and  factory  success  is 
your  success.  Do  not  scale  down  to  the 
inefficient  and  incapable.  Let  us  train 
up  and  build  up  to  the  heights  of  the 
efficient. 

What  is  the  big  inspiration  in  life? 
The  natural  desire  to  excel.  Why  do  we 
applaud  Babe  Euth  ?  Because  he  has  bat 
ted  out  more  home  runs  in  a  season  than 
any  ball  player  on  earth.  If  you  were 
going  to  play  ball,  you  wouldn't  try  to  bat 
at  one  hundred  fifty  to  two  hundred,  you 
would  rather  be  a  Babe  Euth.  But  men 
say  that's  different  from  the  humdrum  of 
toil.  Well,  that's  why  I  am  arguing  the 
end  of  humdrum  toil  by  striving  for  the 
heights.  The  workman  who  performs  his 
tasks  better  than  another  has  satisfaction 


THE  INSPIRATION"  OF  LABOR  55 

in  his  soul,  and  he  will  not  long  escape  the 
notice  that  brings  him  advancement. 

Many  other  things  will  help  to  reduce 
living  cost.  I  want  to  see  profiteering 
isolated  and  punished.  It  is  a  moral 
wrong  and  an  economic  robbery.  The 
man  who  practises  profiteering  is  false  to 
business  and  to  country.  I  do  not  know 
of  a  deadlier  foe  to  our  common  country, 
because  he  creates  the  unrest  that  threat 
ens  from  within  and  emphasizes  the 
appeal  to  class. 

Reduced  cost  of  government  will  help, 
and  we  can  reduce  cost  of  government  by 
quitting  the  play  of  politics  with  the 
nation's  bread  and  butter.  Stage  assaults 
on  profiteering,  mostly  dealing  with  petty 
offenders,  do  not  deeply  impress  the 
country,  and  sugar  agreements  which  add 
a  billion  to  our  sugar  bills  for  a  year  do 
not  indicate  a  know-how  which  entitles 
the  bunglers  to  hold  their  jobs. 

I  have  not  come  with  promises.    I  can 


56  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY* 

not  pledge  you  the  impossible,  and  do  not 
mean  to  suggest  the  impractical.  I  can 
only  preach  the  gospel  of  understanding 
practically  applied.  In  public  service,  I 
have  always  been  ready  to  hear  the  appeal 
of  all  Americans,  and  labor  will  find  an 
ever-ready  period  to  be  heard,  not  for 
labor  alone,  but  for  the  good  of  all  our 
people.  We  can  not  prosper  one  group 
and  imperil  another.  We  can  not  have, 
we  must  not  have,  a  menacing  class  con 
sciousness.  When  we  look  each  other  in 
the  face,  soberly  contemplating  the  great 
web  of  American  life,  we  see  that  the  good 
of  one  is  the  fortune  of  all. 

Our  system  is  all  right ;  it  is  the  judg 
ment  of  the  ages,  and  here  in  America  we 
have  wrought  the  supreme  achievement. 
There  are  abuses,  perhaps  there  ever  will 
be.  Greed  develops  and  robbery  breaks 
out  amid  all  great  processions.  Our  busi 
ness  is  to  strike  at  greed,  and  outlaw  rob- 


INSPIBATION  OF  LABOB  57 

bery,  and  correct  the  abuses,  without 
destroying  the  temple  in  which  we  abide. 

I  do  not  think  we  can  fabricate  the  per 
fect  world,  but  we  can  and  we  mean  to 
make  it  better  from  day  to  day  and  year 
to  year.  I  do  not  blow  you  a  bubble  of 
imaginary  equality  of  men  or  women,  but 
I  do  proclaim  equality  of  opportunity, 
proved  in  America  in  making  America 
the  best  land  of  hope  in  all  the  world. 
The  fair  chance  is  here.  It  isn't  in  a  par 
ticular  craft,  it  isn't  alone  in  the  closed 
shop,  it  isn't  in  the  offerings  of  the  law,  it 
isn't  in  the  revolutionary  proposals  of 
those  who  threaten  destruction  in  return 
for  liberty's  blessings.  It  is  in  honest 
endeavor,  in  thrift,  in  lofty  aspiration, 
and  a  resolute  determination  to  do,  and  to 
get  on  in  the  world. 

I  believe  in  unionism,  I  believe  in  col 
lective  bargaining,  I  believe  the  two  have 
combined  to  speed  labor  toward  its  just 
rewards.  But  I  do  not  believe  in  labor's 


58  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

domination  of  business  or  government 
any  more  than  I  believe  that  capital 
should  dominate.  We  had  our  time  at 
that,  and  we  learned  the  danger  and  ended 
it.  We  do  not  want  to  substitute  one  class 
for  another,  we  want  to  put  an  end  to 
classes. 

We  live  in  an  era  of  collective  endeavor. 
Capital  led  the  way,  and  labor's  organiza 
tion  was  not  only  natural,  but  necessary. 
It  has  done  more  than  serve  its  member 
ship,  it  has  riveted  the  thoughtful  atten 
tion  of  America  to  social  justice  and 
brought  the  fruits  thereof. 

I  hold  that  the  advancement  of  labor's 
cause  in  America  challenges  all  the  world. 
We  have  made,  of  course,  a  few  thousand 
millionaires,  but  we  made  millions  of  self- 
reliant,  advancing,  creative  Americans. 
The  luxury  of  yesterday  is  the  accepted 
necessity  of  to-day.  I  struggled  to  own  a 
motor-car  after  I  had  been  an  employer 
for  twenty  years,  and  workmen  nowadays 


THE  INSPIRATION  OF  LABOR  59 

drive  to  their  tasks  at  thirty,  without  real 
izing  the  transformation.  The  progress 
is  the  miracle  of  American  opportunity. 
I  want  to  hold  to  fundamentals,  strike  at 
any  developing  inequality  and  halt 
assault  on  our  system,  then  go  on  to 
greater  things. 

The  way  is  open.  Opportunity  is  call 
ing,  and  harmonized  capital  and  labor  and 
management  will  clear  the  waiting  paths, 
and  individual  resolution,  the  heritage  of 
American  freedom,  will  speed  us  on.  If 
we  only  hold  fast  to  the  fundamentals,  the 
pride  of  to-day  may  be  a  greater  glory 
to-morrow,  and  ultimately  we  shall 
approach  that  combination  of  achieve 
ment  and  happiness  for  all  men  which  is 
the  divine  plan  for  the  triumphs  of  earth 
and  life  and  human  endeavor. 


AMERICAN  AGRICULTURE 


A  MESSAGE  FOR  FAKMERS 


CHAPTER  IV 

AMERICAN  AGRICULTURE 

I  ADDRESS  you  not  as  farmers  but  as 
patriotic  citizens  of  the  United  States. 
Every  word  that  I  say  to  you  is  addressed 
not  to  your  welfare  alone,  but  to  the  wel 
fare  of  every  man,  woman  and  child,  and 
to  the  welfare  of  the  future  citizens  of  our 
country. 

I  deplore  the  use  in  political  campaigns 
or  in  public  administration  of  special 
appeals  and  of  special  interests.  I 
deplore  any  foreign  policy  which  tends  to 
group  together  those  of  foreign  blood 
according  to  their  nativity.  I  deplore 
undue  meddling  in  the  affairs  of  other 
nations,  which  may,  some  day  in  a  future 
63 


64  OUR  COMMON"  COUNTRY 

election,  result  in  a  hyphenated  vote  con 
trolling  the  balance  of  power  which  may 
be  delivered  to  that  candidate  who  is  most 
supine  in  the  face  of  un-American  pres 
sure.  I  deplore  class  appeals  at  home.  I 
deplore  the  soviet  idea,  and  the  compro 
mises  and  encouragements  which  we  have 
seen  extended  to  it. 

When  the  responsibility  for  leadership 
in  putting  America  back  on  to  the  main 
road,  was  placed  upon  me,  I  said  to  myself 
that  we  must  all  unite  under  the  slogan 
" America  First."  When  I  say  America 
First  I  mean  not  only  that  America  main 
tain  her  own  independence  and  be  first  in 
fulfilling  her  obligations  to  the  world,  by 
deeds  rather  than  words,  and  by  example 
rather  than  preaching,  but  I  mean  that  at 
home  any  special  interest,  any  class,  any 
group  of  our  citizenship  that  has  arrayed 
itself  against  the  interests  of  all,  must 
learn  that  at  home,  as  well  as  abroad, 


AMERICAN  AGRICULTURE  65 

America  First  has  a  meaning,  profound, 
and,  with  God's  aid,  everlasting. 

It  is  true  that  you,  the  farmers  of  this 
country,  and  I  are  charged  with  an  obliga 
tion  of  program  and  definite  action  that 
fosters  the  welfare  of  all  America,  the 
welfare  of  the  man  who  lives  in  the  house 
with  the  red  barn  and  the  productive 
fields  behind  it,  and  also  the  welfare  of 
the  man  who  in  a  crowded  industrial  city, 
comes  home  at  nightfall  to  climb  the  stairs 
to  his  fourth-floor  home,  behind  the  fire 
escapes,  with  hunger  in  the  body. 

I  desire  with  all  my  heart  to  speak  for 
the  consumer  when  I  speak  of  American 
agriculture.  I  desire  to  put  aside  plati 
tudes,  all  the  poetic  tradition  about  the 
worth  and  merits  of  the  honest  farmer. 
Honesty  is  not  peculiar  to  any  occupation. 
I  desire  to  awake  the  country  to  the  men 
aces  to  its  future  unless  American  agri 
culture  is  preserved,  and  above  nonsense 
and  false  promises  and  prodigal  waste 


66  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

and  dictatorial  powers,  all  of  which  have 
smothered  the  farmer,  as  they  have 
smothered  us  all,  and  overworked  execu 
tive  powers.  I  desire,  in  this  great  agri 
cultural  problem  as  in  all  our  national 
problems,  to  go  back  to  the  functions  of 
our  Republic  and  of  our  representative 
system.  I  want  to  restore  the  will  of  the 
people.  And  under  the  restoration,  I  de 
sire  to  deal  with  all  our  great  problems, 
not  in  the  twilight  of  generalities,  but  in 
the  full  sunlight  of  definition  and  for 
ward  marching. 

With  the  agriculture  of  the  United 
States — the  basic  industry — I  am  deeply 
concerned.  If  history  does  not  deceive  us 
by  changing  repetitions  of  her  precepts,  a 
nation  lives  no  longer  than  her  agricul 
tural  health  abides.  It  is  the  soil  that  is 
our  mother,  and  the  mother  of  nations ;  it 
is  land  hunger  that  founds  revolutions, 
anarchy  and  decay.  We  must  look  our 
land  problems  and  farming  situation 


AMERICAN  AGRICULTURE  67 

squarely  in  the  face  and  act  bravely  and 
wisely  and  promptly.  In  doing  so,  you 
and  I  must  turn  to  the  consumers  of  the 
United  States  and  say,  "This  is  your 
problem  and  your  posterity's  problem  as 
well  as  ours." 

The  day  of  land  hunger  has  come.  The 
day  when  we  see  before  us  the  spectacle 
of  the  land-owing  farmer  being  displaced 
by  capitalistic  speculation  in  land  and  the 
soil-exhausting  and  landlord-exploited 
tenant  farmer  has  come.  The  day  when 
the  share  of  the  American  farmer  in 
whatever  is  left  of  prosperity  has  been 
overtopped  by  the  share  taken  by  our 
industrial  production,  has  come.  The  day 
when  industry  outbids  agriculture  for 
labor  has  come.  The  day  when  the  profit 
of  the  farmer  has  been  cut  down  and  the 
price  to  the  consumer  has  been  lifted  up, 
has  come.  The  day  when  bad  and  waste 
ful  distribution  between  producer  and 
consumer,  and  the  day  of  too  much 


68  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

unrighteous  profiteering,  by  too  many 
unnecessary  middlemen,  has  come.  The 
day  when  production  of  our  soil  must  be 
protected  against  the  soil  products  of 
countries  of  low  standards  of  living,  has 
come. 

These  conditions  call  for  wise  action  on 
the  part  of  government.  They  call  for 
good  counsel.  They  call  for  the  presence 
of  the  American  farmer  in  our  govern 
ment  offices,  administrative  and  repre 
sentative.  They  call  for  extension  of  the 
farm  loan  principle,  not  only  in  the  case 
of  the  man  who  already  owns  a  farm,  but 
to  worthy  Americans  who  want  to  acquire 
farms.  In  other  words,  they  call  for  cap 
ital  available  to  the  farmers  of  America 
as  a  bulwark  against  the  exploits  of  capi 
tal  available  to  the  land  speculator. 

Furthermore,  these  conditions  call  for 
a  willingness  of  all  Americans  to  act 
together  in  restoring  to  American  agri 
culture  a  prosperity  that  will  keep  the 


AMERICAN  AGRICULTURE  69 

land  owner  and  land  worker  upon  our 
soil.  "VVe  must  obliterate  the  picture  of 
the  year  1920,  when  we  have  allowed  the 
labor  of  the  farm-wife  and  young  girls 
and  old  women  to  be  the  substitute  for 
normal  farm  labor.  <  The  women  have 
helped  to  guarantee  to  consumers  of  the 
United  States  and  dependent  nations 
their  full  food  supply,  and  though  it  is  a 
monument  to  them  we  must  find  ways  to 
restore  a  more  normal  and  a  more  Amer 
ican  labor  supply  to  our  farms. 

I  believe  that  the  American  people, 
through  their  government  and  otherwise, 
not  only  in  behalf  of  the  farmer  but  in 
behalf  of  their  own  welfare,  and  the  pock- 
etbooks  of  the  consumers  of  America,  will 
encourage,  make  lawful,  and  stimulate  co 
operative  buying,  cooperative  distribu 
tion,  and  cooperative  selling  of  farm 
products. 

Industry  has  been  organized ;  labor  has 
been  organized;  cooperation  within  in- 


70  OUR  COMMON"  COUNTRY 

dustry  and  within  labor,  and  indeed,  coop 
eration  between  the  two,  is  far  advanced. 
I  do  not  contemplate  the  organization  of 
the  farmers  and  consumers  of  this  coun 
try  as  a  step  toward  organization  of  spe 
cial  interests  to  obtain  special  favors.  If 
I  did,  I  would  oppose  it.  But  I  know  full 
well  that  we  must,  all  of  us  consumers — 
the  laborers,  the  business  men,  the  teach 
ers,  the  children,  the  rich  and  the  poor, 
the  young  and  the  old,  the  men  and  the 
women — act  together  to  find  our  way 
closer  and  easier  and  cheaper  to  the 
sources  of  our  food  supply.  And  I  know 
full  well  that  the  farmers  must  work  to 
gether  to  find  their  way,  by  better  trans 
portation,  better  marketing  and  organized 
cooperative  effort,  closer  to  the  consumers 
of  America. 

If  these  two — producers  and  consumers 
of  food — are  not  brought  closer  together 
by  organization,  by  better  railroad  serv 
ice,  by  the  auxiliary  of  motor-truck  f  acili- 


AMERICAN  AGRICULTURE  71 

ties,  by  better  roads,  by  the  removal  of 
legal  obstructions  to  organized  effort,  I 
know  that  organized  profiteering  will 
squeeze  in  somewhere  between  the  pro 
ducer  and  the  consumer. 

I  do  not  speak  in  a  sentimental  general 
ity  when  I  say  this.  I  hope  I  am  saying 
something  which  will  not  only  point  the 
way  to  a  fair  and  just  prosperity  for 
American  agriculture  and  tend  to  stop 
land  speculation  and  the  increase  of  the 
tenant  farmer,  but  which  will  be  one  big, 
practical  step  taken  against  the  high  cost 
of  living.  It  will  be  taken  in  the  name  of 
no  class,  but  in  the  name  of  the  people  of 
America. 

Years  ago  a  Chinese  philosopher  uttered 
a  profound  truth  when  he  said:  "The 
well-being  of  a  people  is  like  a  tree ;  agri 
culture  is  its  root,  manufacture  and  com 
merce  are  its  branches  and  its  life ;  if  the 
root  is  injured  the  leaves  fall,  the  branches 
break  and  the  tree  dies." 


72  OUR  COMMON  COTJNTBY1 

It  may  seem  strange  to  many  good  peo 
ple  that  at  this  particular  time  any  one 
should  quote  this  saying  of  a  wise  old  Chi 
nese.  Never  in  all  our  history  have  prices 
of  farm  products  ruled  so  high,  measured 
in  dollars,  as  during  the  past  four  years. 
Farm  land  in  the  great  surplus-producing 
states  has  advanced  to  unheard-of  prices, 
with  every  indication  that,  but  for  the 
tight  money  conditions,  it  would  go  still 
higher.  Apparently  the  farmers  of  the 
land  are  enjoying  unprecedented  pros 
perity.  "Why  then,  even  by  implication, 
suggest  that  something  may  be  wrong 
with  our  agriculture,  and  that  the  trouble 
may  be  communicated  to  our  manufac 
turers  and  commerce?  People  in  the 
cities  are  disposed  to  think  that  if  there  is 
anything  wrong  it  is  in  the  cities  where 
food  is  selling  at  such  high  prices,  and 
not  in  the  country  where  the  food  is  pro 
duced.  But  both  farm  and  city  students 
of  national  problems  see  in  the  present 


AMERICAN  AGRICULTURE  73 

agricultural  situation  certain  conditions 
which  give  cause  for  real  concern  to  every 
lover  of  his  country. 

An  intelligent  discussion  of  our  agricul 
ture  at  the  present  time  must  take  note  of 
what  has  happened  since  the  middle  of  the 
last  century.  At  that  time  a  fine  rural 
civilization  had  been  built  up  east  of  the 
Mississippi  River,  with  Ohio  in  the  heart 
of  the  corn  belt  and  standing  in  about  the 
same  relation  to  agriculture  as  Iowa 
stands  to-day.  The  agricultural  frontier 
had  been  pushed  beyond  the  Mississippi, 
and  abundant  food  was  being  raised  to 
support  the  growing  industrial  life  of  the 
East. 

Then  came  the  civil  war,  and  following 
it  the  great  western  migration  into  the 
fertile,  open  plains  of  what  is  now  the 
Central  West.  Through  the  homestead 
law  the  government  gave  a  farm  of  the 
richest  land  in  the  world  to  every  man 
who  wanted  one.  Railroads  were  built, 


74  OITR  COMMON"  COUNTRY 

the  prairies  were  plowed  up,  and  almost 
over  night  the  agricultural  production  of 
the  United  States  increased  by  fifty  per 
cent.  Grains  were  produced  and  sold  at 
the  bare  cost  of  utilizing  the  soil,  and  the 
farmers  of  the  older  states  to  the  east  were 
smothered  by  this  flood  of  cheap  grain. 
The  only  thing  that  could  be  done  with 
this  super-abundance  of  food  was  to  build 
cities  out  of  it.  And  great  cities  we  did 
build,  not  only  in  the  United  States,  but 
across  the  seas.  The  world  has  never 
seen,  and  probably  may  never  again  see, 
such  a  terrific  impulse  toward  city-build 
ing  on  a  vast  scale  as  that  which  was  given 
by  the  over-production  of  farm  products 
during  the  latter  part  of  the  nineteenth 
century  and  the  first  few  years  of  the 
twentieth. 

What  are  ordinarily  dull  statistics  will1 
strikingly  illumine  the  situation  which  I 
have  been  trying  to  convey.  In  the  decade 
from  1900  to  1910  the  city  population  of 


AMERICAN  AGRICULTURE  75 

the  United  States  increased  thirty-five 
per  cent.,  while  the  rural  population 
increased  only  eleven  per  cent.  The  num 
ber  of  farm  utilities  probably  increased 
less,  but  we  do  know  officially  that  the 
city  population  increased  more  than  three 
times  as  rapidly  as  the  rural  population. 
The  figures  are  not  yet  complete  for  the 
decade  ending  with  1920,  but  sufficient 
reports  have  been  published  to  give  us  a 
very  dependable  estimate.  The  indica 
tions  are  that  no  increase  will  be  shown  in 
the  number  of  farms  and  no  increase  in 
strictly  farm  population.  In  all  proba 
bility,  dating  from  1920,  we  shall  estimate 
our  farm  population  as  thirty  per  cent,  of 
the  whole  while  the  urban  population  will 
make  up  the  other  seventy  per  cent. 

Another  interesting  fact  to  reveal  the 
danger  in  changing  conditions:  Only  a 
few  decades  ago,  indeed  from  the  very 
beginning,  the  exports  of  the  United 
States  were  soil-grown  or  farm-produced 


76  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

materials.  On  the  other  hand,  most  of  our 
imports  were  manufactured  articles.  In 
the  last  half  century,  year  after  year  the 
exports  of  farm-grown  products  have 
decreased — except  during  the  World  War 
— and  exports  of  manufactured  products 
have  increased  until  again  we  are  rapidly 
reaching  the  zero  mark  from  the  stand 
point  of  agricultural  supplies  to  the 
world.  Each  year  our  imports  show 
larger  and  larger  quantities  of  farm- 
grown  products  and  the  time  is  almost 
with  us  when  the  imports  of  farm-grown 
products  will  exceed  the  exports,  in  short, 
when  our  farm  population  will  not  be  sup 
plying  the  products  necessary  for  our  own 
people. 

The  farmer  suffered  during  this  chang 
ing  period.  Over-production  means  low 
prices,  and  he  over-produced  with  a  ven 
geance,  though  it  was  an  inevitable  part 
of  the  scheme  of  American  development. 
He  was  obliged  to  practise  grinding  eco- 


AMERICAN  AGRICULTURE  77 

nomy,  and  to  live  as  far  as  possible  from 
the  produce  of  Ms  own  acres.  He  did  live 
essentially  within  his  own  productivity, 
and  the  farm  was  the  factory  for  the  agri 
cultural  home.  "Land  poor"  was  a  com 
mon  expression  in  the  farming  country. 
Many,  and  especially  the  ambitious  boys, 
abandoned  the  farms  and  added  them 
selves  to  the  growing  population  of  the 
cities,  driven  by  the  hardships  of  the  farm 
and  attracted  by  the  greater  rewards 
offered  by  the  cities. 

By  1905,  it  was  becoming  apparent  that 
the  consuming  power  of  the  cities  and 
industrial  centers  would  soon  be  large 
enough  to  equalize  the  producing  power 
of  the  farms.  Prices  of  farm  products 
began  to  advance,  and  with  this  advance 
an  increase  in  the  price  of  farm  land. 
Improved  machinery  increased  the  num 
ber  of  acres  one  man  could  farm,  thereby 
decreasing  his  cost  of  production.  The 
expression  "farm  poor"  was  no  longer 


78  OUR  COMMON"  COUNTRY 

heard.  Men  who  had  not  secured  farms 
of  their  own  began  to  seek  them,  and  the 
march  to  the  West  and  Northwest 
was  resumed.  Irrigation  projects  were 
started  and  the  homestead  law  made  more 
liberal  in  order  to  make  the  settlement  of 
the  semi-arid  country  more  attractive. 
New  areas  of  government  land  were 
opened  for  entry. 

In  the  meantime,  the  consuming  public 
had  become  concerned  over  the  prospect 
of  paying  higher  prices  for  foodstuffs. 
Cities  and  industrial  centers  had  been 
built  up  on  ridiculously  cheap  food; 
indeed,  their  building  was  the  first  essen 
tial  in  developing  farm  values.  Then  the 
increase  in  price  called  for  readjustment 
and  required  wage  advances.  Organiza 
tions  of  city  business  men  began  to  take 
an  interest  in  farm  affairs  and  preach  the 
duty  of  increased  production.  The 
"Back  to  the  Land"  cry  began  to  be 
heardL  Increased  appropriations  by  Con- 


AMERICAN  AGRICULTURE  79 

gress  and  by  the  state  legislatures  were 
made  to  stimulate  better  methods  of  farm 
ing  and  thus  increase  production  in  hope 
of  keeping  down  food  prices.  The  rural 
uplift  movement  was  started  with  the 
thought  that,  by  making  conditions  on  the 
farm  more  attractive,  the  drift  from  the 
farm  to  the  city  might  be  checked. 
The  work  of  agricultural  colleges  was 
strengthened  by  the  addition  of  extension 
departments,  the  function  of  which  is  to 
take  the  teaching  of  better  methods  of 
farming  and  stock-growing  into  the  coun 
ties  and  smaller  communities,  and  espe 
cially  to  stimulate  an  interest  in  farming 
among  the  boys  and  girls.  All  sorts  of 
efforts  were  made  to  check  the  drift  from 
the  farm  to  the  city,  and  to  maintain  farm 
production. 

In  truth,  here  in  America,  farming 
came  to  that  stage  where  it  ceased  to  be  a 
mere  struggle  for  sustenance,  and  it  found 
its  place  amid  the  competition  for 


80  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

achievement.  It  was  no  longer  the  inher 
ently  directed  operation,  with  the  soil  for 
restricted  living,  but  became  a  commer 
cial,  scientific  operation  with  Mother 
Nature,  to  share  in  the  accomplishments 
of  a  modern  life,  and  know  a  participa 
tion  in  modern  rewards. 

Then  came  the  World  War  which  accel 
erated  the  movement  which  was  already 
under  full  headway.  The  cry  for  food 
which  came  from  the  nations  across  the 
sea  caused  further  advances  in  prices  of 
farm  products,  as  well  as  in  prices  of  farm 
land,  and  both  profits  and  patriotism 
stimulated  production.  But  with  this 
increased  demand  for  the  products  of  the 
farm  came  also  an  increased  demand  for 
the  products  of  our  factories  and  other 
industrial  enterprises,  resulting  in  higher 
wages,  and  the  city  continued  to  pull  from 
the  farm  large  numbers  of  young  men 
who  did  not  have  farms  of  their  own  and 
could  see  no  prospect  of  getting  them,  and 


AMEEICAN  AGRICULTURE  81 

who  thought  they  could  see  in  the  city  bet 
ter  wages  and  greater  opportunities  for 
advancement,  as  well  as  more  attractive 
living  conditions.  If  the  facts  were  avail 
able  it  would  be  found,  probably  during 
the  period  from  1905  to  1917,  the  time  of 
our  entrance  into  the  war,  the  drift  from 
the  farm  to  the  city  continued  with  little 
abatement  notwithstanding  the  more 
hopeful  conditions  on  the  farm. 

The  splendid  part  played  by  the  farm 
ers  of  the  nation  during  the  war  probably 
never  will  be  understood  or  fully  appre 
ciated  by  our  people.  More  than  twenty- 
five  per  cent,  of  all  our  fighting  men  came 
from  the  farms,  and  after  sending  their 
sons  to  the  camps,  the  fathers  and  moth 
ers,  with  the  help  of  the  younger  children, 
turned  to  and  produced  more  food  than 
was  ever  before  produced  in  the  history  of 
the  world  in  the  same  time  and  from  the 
same  area  of  land.  Their  working  days 
were  measured  not  by  the  clock,  but  by;  the 


82  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

number  of  daylight  hours.  They  took  to 
themselves  the  responsibility  of  feeding 
not  only  our  own  people,  but  also  our 
allies  across  the  sea.  In  more  ways  than 
one,  our  farmers  made  the  war  their  war, 
and  counted  no  sacrifice  too  great  to  help 
fight  it  through  to  a  successful  finish. 
The  story  of  what  they  did,  written  by 
some  one  who  understands  it,  will  furnish 
one  of  the  most  glorious  chapters  in 
American  history.  One  thing  I  may  say 
— in  every  American  conflict,  from  the 
Revolution  for  independence  to  the 
World  War  for  maintained  rights,  the 
farmer  has  been  one  hundred  per  cent. 
American  and  ready  for  every  sacrifice. 

Without  speaking  at  length  of  farm 
production  and  prices  during  the  war,  it 
is  necessary  to  note  certain  results,  if  we 
are  to  deal  understandingly  with  the  agri 
cultural  situation  at  the  present  time,  and 
speak  intelligently  of  a  future  policy. 
War  conditions  put  a  premium  on  grain 


AMERICAN  AGRICULTURE  83 

growing  at  the  expense  of  live  stock  pro 
duction.  As  a  consequence,  many  stock 
producers  and  feeders  have  suffered 
heavy  and,  in  some  cases,  ruinous  losses. 
If  this  condition  should  continue,  we  are 
in  danger,  in  the  near  'future,  of  having  to 
pay  very  high  prices  for  our  meats. 

For  two  outstanding  reasons  the  main 
tenance  of  a  normal  balance  between  live 
stock  and  grain  production  is  a  matter  of 
national  concern.  One  is  that  we  are  a 
meat-eating  people,  and  should  have  a 
fairly  uniform  supply  at  a  reasonable 
price.  Conditions  which  either  greatly 
stimulate  or  greatly  discourage  live  stock 
production  result  in  prices  altogether  too 
high  for  the  average  consuming  public  or 
altogether  too  low  for  the  producer.  The 
other  is  that  the  over-stimulation  of  grain 
production  depletes  the  fertility  of  our 
land,  which  is  our  greatest  national  asset, 
and  results  in  a  greater  supply  than  can 
be  consumed  at  a  price  profitable  to  the 


84  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

producer,  and  finally  to  wide-spread  agri 
cultural  distress  from  winch  all  of  our 
people  suffer.  As  a  reconstruction  meas 
ure,  therefore,  our  government  should  do 
everything  in  its  power  to  restore  the  nor 
mal  balance  between  live  stock  and  grain 
production,  and  thus  encourage  the 
prompt  return  to  that  system  of  diversi 
fied  farming  by  which  alone  we  can  main 
tain  our  soil  fertility.  This  is  a  matter  of 
immediate  importance  to  all  of  our 
people. 

No  one  can  forecast  with  certainty  the 
trend  of  prices  of  farm  products  during 
the  next  two  or  three  years.  Recovery 
from  a  world  crisis  such  as  we  have  expe 
rienced  is  slow,  inevitably.  It  is  like  the 
human  convalescence  from  a  long  and 
dangerous  illness.  Our  relations  with  the 
world-at-large  are  such  that  important 
happenings  in  other  lands  have  a  marked 
effect  upon  conditions  here  at  home. 
Order  must  be  restored,  industries 


AMERICAN  AGRICULTURE  85 

rebuilt,  devastated  lands  reclaimed,  trans 
portation  re-established,  the  vast  armies 
re-absorbed  in  the  occupations  of  normal 
life.  The  near  future  promises  to  be  a 
period  of  uncertainty  for  the  farmer  as 
well  as  for  the  men  engaged  in  industrial 
enterprises.  America  has  no  greater 
problem  than  returning  securely  to  the 
normal,  onward  road  again.  This  isn't 
looking  backward — it  is  a  forward  look  to 
stability  and  security. 

It  must  be  evident,  however,  to  any  one 
who  has  given  the  matter  even  superficial 
consideration,  that  we  have  now  come  to 
the  end  of  the  long  period  of  agricultural 
exploitation  in  the  United  States.  No 
longer  are  there  great  and  easy  and  await 
ing  areas  of  fertile  land  for  the  land 
hungry.  We  have  now  under  the  plow 
practically  all  of  our  easily-tillable  land, 
though  idle  areas  await  reclamation  and 
development  by  that  genius  and  determi 
nation  which  ever  have  made  nature  re- 


86  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

spond  to  human  needs.  Additions  of  con 
sequence,  which  we  may  make  to  our 
farming  area  from  this  time  on,  must 
come  by  putting  water  on  the  dry  lands  of 
the  arid  and  semi-arid  country,  or  by  tak 
ing  water  off  of  the  swamp  lands,  of 
which  we  have  large  areas  in  some  sec 
tions,  or  by  digging  the  stumps  out  of  the 
cut-over  timber  lands  of  the  North  and 
South.  There  are,  of  course,  large  possi 
bilities  in  intensive  farming,  in  that  land 
thrift  which  admits  of  neither  waste  nor 
neglect,  and  in  ever-improving  methods 
which  must  be  as  inspiring  to  agricultural 
life  as  to  the  professions  or  to  commercial 
leadership.  I  want  a  soul  in  farming,  to 
set  aglow  the  most  independent  and  self- 
respecting  activity  in  all  the  world. 

The  time  has  come  when,  as  a  nation,  we 
must  determine  upon  a  definite  agricul 
tural  policy.  We  must  decide  whether  we 
shall  undertake  to  make  of  the  United 
States  a  self-sustaining  nation — which 


AMERICAN  AGRICTTLTTTKE  87 

means  that  we  shall  grow  within  our  own 
boundaries  all  of  the  staple  food  products 
needed  to  maintain  the  highest  type  of 
civilization — or  whether  we  shall  continue 
to  exploit  our  agricultural  resources  for 
the  benefit  of  our  industrial  and  commer 
cial  life,  and  leave  to  posterity  the  task  of 
finding  food  enough,  by  strong-arm  meth 
ods,  if  necessary,  to  support  the  coming 
hundreds  of  millions.  I  believe  in  the 
self-sustaining,  independent,  self-reliant 
nation,  agriculturally,  industrially  and 
politically.  We  are  then  the  guarantors 
of  our  own  security  and  are  equal  to  the 
task. 

If  we  should  unhappily  choose  the 
course  of  industrial  and  commercial  pro 
motion  at  the  expense  of  agriculture, 
cities  will  continue  to  grow  at  the  expense 
of  the  rural  community,  agriculture  will 
inevitably  break  down  and  finally  destroy 
the  finest  rural  civilization  with  the 
greatest  possibilities  the  world  has  ever 


88  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

seen.  Decreased  farm  production  will 
make  dear  food  and  we  shall  be  obliged  to 
send  our  ships  to  far-away  nations  in 
search  of  cheap  foodstuffs  the  importa 
tion  of  which  is  sure  to  intensify  agricul 
tural  discouragement  and  distress  at 
home.  Ultimately  there  will  come  the 
same  fatal  break-down  and  from  the  same 
causes,  that  has  destroyed  the  great  civili 
zations  of  centuries  past. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  shall  deter 
mine  to  build  up  here  a  self-sustaining  na 
tion — and  what  lover  of  his  country  can 
make  a  different  choice? — then  we  must 
at  once  set  about  the  development  of  a 
system  of  agriculture  which  will  enable 
us  to  feed  our  people  abundantly,  with 
something  to  spare  for  export  in  years  of 
plenty,  and  at  prices  which  will  insure  to 
the  farmer  and  his  family  both  financial 
rewards  and  educational,  social  and  relig 
ious  living  conditions  fairly  comparable 
to  those  offered  by  the  cities.  A  sound 


AMERICAN  AGRICULTURE  89 

system  of  agriculture  can  not  be  main 
tained  on  any  other  basis.  Anything 
short  of  a  fair  return  upon  invested  capi 
tal  and  a  fair  wage  for  the  labor  which 
goes  into  the  crops,  and  enough  in  addi 
tion  to  enable  the  farmer  to  maintain  the 
fertility  of  his  soil  and  insure  against  nat 
ural  hazards,  will  drive  large  numbers  of 
farmers  to  the  cities. 

A  frank  recognition  by  all  of  our  people 
of  this  fundamental  truth  is  necessary,  if 
we  are  successfully  to  work  out  this  great 
national  problem.  It  is  a  matter  of  even 
greater  concern  to  the  people  of  the  cities 
than  to  the  farmer  and  the  farm  commu 
nity.  If  we  can  not  by  painstaking  study 
and  wise  statesmanship  arrive  at  such 
understanding  and  application  of  eco 
nomic  laws  as  will  enable  us  to  bring 
about  a  fair  balance  between  our  urban 
and  rural  industries,  bringing  prosperity 
to  both  and  permitting  neither  to  fatten 
at  the  expense  of  the  other,  we  can  not 


90  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

hope  for  concord,  and  without  concord 
there  is  no  assurance  for  the  future. 

Heretofore  the  farmer  has  been  an  indi 
vidualist.  Living  a  somewhat  isolated 
life  and  being  compelled  to  work  long 
hours,  it  has  not  been  easy  for  him  to 
gather  with  his  fellows.  He  has  not  had 
a  ready  means  of  defense  against  the 
strong  organizations  of  both  capital  and 
labor,  which  in  their  own  interest  have  at 
times  imposed  unfair  conditions  upon 
him.  It  is  true  that  at  times,  during  the 
past  fifty  years,  there  have  been  tempo 
rary  farmer  organizations  brought  to 
gether  to  combat  some  unusually  burden 
some  conditions  but  usually  breaking 
down  when  the  emergency  has  passed. 

But  of  late  years  there  have  sprung  up 
farmer  organizations  of  a  quite  different 
sort — organizations  with  a  very  large 
membership,  with  an  aggressive  and  intel 
ligent  leadership,  and  with  a  way  of 
raising  whatever  funds  they;  maj;  find 


AMERICAN  AGRICULTURE  91 

necessary  to  promote  the  interest  of  their 
members.  The  leaders  of  these  organiza 
tions  are  learning  rapidly  how  to  adapt  to 
their  work  the  methods  which  business 
men  and  working  men  have  found  success 
ful  in  furthering  thefr  own  interests.  The 
fruit-growers  of  the  western  coast  have 
become  so  strong  that  they  are  now  able 
not  only  to  do  away  with  many  of  the  ex 
penses  heretofore  paid  to  others,  but  also 
to  influence  the  price  of  their  products. 
The  grain-growers  of  the  West  and 
Northwest  have  become  strong  enough  to 
bring  about  many  changes  they  desired  in 
the  marketing  of  their  crops.  The  farm 
ers  of  the  corn  belt  states  are  rapidly  per 
fecting  the  most  powerful  organization  of 
farmers  ever  known  in  this  country.  All 
of  these  are  natural  developments  in  the 
evolving  change  of  relationship  and  the 
modern  complexities  of  productivity  and 
exchange. 
It  is  more  than  conceivable,  it  is  appar- 


92  OUK  COMMON  COUNTRY] 

ent,  that  we  are  able  to  deal  more  wisely 
and  more  justly  with  our  agriculture  than 
we  have  in  the  past.  Unless  we  do  deal 
more  fairly  there  may  come  a  conflict 
between  the  organized  farmers  in  the  sur 
plus-producing  states  and  those  who  insist 
on  buying  their  crops  below  production 
costs.  We  have  witnessed  the  restricted 
production  of  manufactures  and  of 
labor,  but  we  have  not  yet  experienced  the 
intentionally  restricted  production  of 
foodstuffs.  Let  us  hope  we  never  may. 
It  is  our  business  to  produce  and  conserve, 
not  to  deny,  deprive  or  destroy. 

I  have  no  thought  of  suggesting  that 
the  government  should  work  out  an  elab 
orate  system  of  agriculture  and  then  try 
to  impose  it  on  the  farmers  of  the  coun 
try.  That  would  be  utterly  repugnant  to 
American  ideals.  Government  paternal 
ism,  whether  applied  to  agriculture  or  to 
any  other  of  our  great  national  industries, 
would  stifle  ambition,  impair  efficiency, 


AMERICAN  AGRICULTURE  93 

lessen  production  and  make  us  a  nation  of 
dependent  incompetents.  The  farmer 
requires  no  special  favors  at  the  hands  of 
the  government.  'All  he  needs  is  a  fair 
chance  and  just  such  consideration  for 
agriculture  as  we  ought  to  give  to  a  basic 
industry,  and  ever  seek  to  promote  for  our 
common  good. 

The  need  of  farm  representation  in 
larger  governmental  affairs  is  recognized. 
During  the  past  seven  years  the  right  of 
agriculture  to  a  voice  in  government 
administration  has  been  practically 
ignored,  and  at  times  the  farmer  has  suf 
fered  grievously  as  a  result.  The  farmer 
has  a  vital  interest  in  our  trade  relations 
with  other  countries,  in  the  administra 
tion  of  our  financial  policies,  and  in  many 
of  the  larger  activities  of  the  government. 
His  interests  must  be  safeguarded  by  men 
who  understand  his  needs,  he  must  be 
actually  and  practically  represented. 

The  right  of  farmers  to  form  coopera- 


94  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

tive  associations  for  the  marketing  of 
their  products  must  be  granted.  The  con 
cert  of  agriculture  is  as  essential  to  farms 
as  a  similar  concert  of  action  is  to  facto 
ries.  A  prosperous  agriculture  demands 
not  only  efficiency  in  production,  but 
efficiency  in  marketing.  Through  coop 
erative  associations  the  route  between  the 
producer  and  the  consumer  can  and  must 
be  shortened.  Wasteful  effort  can  and 
must  be  avoided.  Unnecessary  expense 
can  and  must  be  eliminated.  It  is  to  the 
advantage  of  all  of  our  people  that  every 
possible  improvement  be  made  in  our 
methods  of  getting  the  products  of  our 
farms  into  the  hands  of  the  people  who 
consume  them.  The  legitimate  functions 
of  the  middleman  may  continue  to  be  per 
formed,  by  private  enterprise,  under  con 
ditions  where  the  middleman  is  necessary 
and  gives  his  skill  to  our  joint  welfare. 
The  parasite  in  distribution  who  preys  on 
both  producer  and  consumer  must  no 


AMEKICAN  AGKICULTUKE  95 

longer  sap  the  vitality  of  this  fundamen 
tal  life. 

"We  should  have  a  scientific  study  of 
agricultural  prices  and  farm  production 
costs,  both  at  home  and  abroad,  with  a 
view  to  reducing  the  frequency  of  abnor 
mal  fluctuations  here.  Stabilization  will 
contribute  to  everybody's  confidence. 
Farmers  have  complained  bitterly  of  the 
frequent  and  violent  fluctuations  in 
prices  of  farm  products,  and  especially  in 
prices  of  live  stock.  They  do  not  find 
fluctuations — such  fluctuations — in  the 
products  of  other  industries.  In  a  gen 
eral  way  prices  of  farm  products  must  go 
up  or  down  according  to  whether  there  is 
a  plentiful  crop  or  a  short  one.  The 
farmer's  raw  materials  are  the  fertility 
of  the  soil,  the  sunshine  and  the  rain ;  and 
the  size  of  his  crops  is  measured  by  the 
supply  of  these  raw  materials  and  the 
skill  with  which  he  makes  use  of  them. 
He  can  not  control  his  production  and 


96  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

adjust  it  to  the  demand  as  can  the  manu 
facturer.  But  he  can  see  no  good  reason 
why  the  prices  of  his  products  should 
fluctuate  so  violently  from  week  to  week, 
and  sometimes  from  day  to  day.  We 
must  get  a  better  understanding  of  the 
factors  which  influence  agricultural 
prices ;  with  a  view  to  avoiding  these  vio 
lent  fluctuations  and  bringing  about  aver 
age  prices,  which  shall  bear  a  reasonable 
relation  to  the  cost  of  production.  We  do 
not  offer  any  quack  remedies  in  this  mat 
ter,  but  we  do  pledge  ourselves  to  make  a 
thorough  study  of  the  disease,  find  out 
what  causes  it,  and  then  apply  the  remedy 
which  promises  a  cure. 

We  promise  to  put  an  end  to  unneces 
sary  price-fixing  of  farm  products  and  to 
ill-considered  efforts  arbitrarily  to  re 
duce  farm  product  prices.  In  times  of 
national  crisis,  when  there  is  a  known 
scarcity  of  any  necessary  product,  price 
control  for  the  purpose  of  making  a  fair 


AMERICAN  AGRICULTURE  97 

distribution  of  the  stores  on  hand  may  be 
both  necessary  and  wise.  But  we  know 
that  there  can  be  no  repeal  of  natural 
laws — the  eternal  fundamentals.  The  his 
tory  of  the  last  three  thousand  years  re 
cords  the  folly  of  such  efforts.  If  the 
price  of  any  farm  product,  for  example,  is 
arbitrarily  fixed  at  a  point  which  does  not 
cover  the  cost  of  production,  the  farmer 
is  compelled  to  reduce  the  production  of 
that  particular  crop.  This  results  in  a 
shortage  which  in  turn  brings  about 
higher  prices  than  before,  and  thus  inten 
sifies  the  danger  from  which  it  was  sought 
to  escape.  In  times  past,  many  nations 
have  tried  to  hold  down  living  costs  by 
arbitrarily  fixing  prices  of  farm  prod 
ucts.  All  such  efforts  have  failed,  and 
have  usually  brought  national  disaster. 

Government  drives  against  food  prices 
such  as  we  have  experienced  during  the 
past  two  years  are  equally  vain  and  use 
less.  The  ostensible  purpose  of  such 


98  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

drives  is  to  reduce  the  price  the  consumer 
pays  for  food.  The  actual  result  is  un 
justly  to  depress  for  a  time  the  prices  the 
farmer  receives  for  his  grains  and  live 
stock,  but  with  no  appreciable  reduction 
in  the  price  the  consumer  pays.  Such 
drives  simply  give  the  speculator  and  the 
profiteer  additional  opportunities  to  add 
to  their  exactions,  while  they  add  to  the 
uncertainty  and  discouragement  under 
which  the  farmer  is  laboring  during  this 
period  of  readjustment. 

We  favor  the  administration  of  the 
farm  loan  act,  so  as  to  help  men  who  farm 
to  secure  farms  of  their  own,  and  to  give 
to  them  long-time  credits  needed  to  prac 
tise  the  best  methods  of  diversified 
farming. 

We  also  favor  the  authorization  of 
associations  to  provide  the  necessary 
machinery  to  furnish  personal  credit  to 
the  man,  whether  land  owner  or  tenant, 
who  is  hampered  for  lack  of  working  cap- 


AMERICAN  AGRICULTURE  99 

ital.  The  highest  type  of  rural  civiliza 
tion  is  that  in  which  the  land  is  farmed  by 
the  men  who  own  it.  Unfortunately,  as 
land  increases  in  value,  tenancy  also 
increases. 

This  has  been  true  throughout  history. 
At  the  present  time  probably  one-half  of 
the  high  priced  land  in  the  corn  belt 
states  is  farmed  by  men,  who,  because  of 
lack  of  capital,  find  it  necessary  to  rent. 
This  increase  in  tenancy  brings  with  it 
evils  which  are  a  real  menace  to  national 
welfare.  The  land  owner,  especially  if  he 
be  a  speculator  who  is  holding  for  a  profit 
through  an  advance  in  value,  is  concerned 
chiefly  in  securing  the  highest  possible 
rent.  The  tenant  who  lacks  sufficient 
working  capital,  and  who  too  often  is 
working  under  a  short  time  lease,  is 
forced  to  farm  the  land  to  the  limit  and 
rob  it  of  its  fertility  in  order  to  pay  the 
rent.  Thus  we  have  a  sort  of  conspiracy 
between  landlord  and  tenant  to  rob  the 


100  OUR  COMMON"  COUNTRY 

soil  upon  which  our  national  well-being 
and  indeed  our  very  existence  depend. 
Amid  such  conditions,  we  have  inefficient 
schools,  broken-down  churches,  and  a  sad 
ly-limited  social  life.  We  should,  there 
fore,  concern  ourselves  not  only  in  help 
ing  men  to  secure  farms  of  their  own,  and 
in  helping  the  tenant  secure  the  working 
capital  he  needs  to  carry  on  the  best  meth 
ods  of  diversified  farming,  but  we  should 
work  out  a  system  of  land-leasing  which, 
while  doing  full  justice  to  both  landlord 
and  tenant,  will  at  the  same  time  conserve 
the  fertility  of  the  soil. 

We  do  not  longer  recognize  the  right  to 
speculative  profit  in  the  operation  of  our 
transporation  systems,  but  we  are  pledged 
to  restore  them  to  the  highest  state  of  effi 
ciency  as  quickly  as  possible.  Agricul 
ture  has  suffered  more  severely  than  any 
other  industry  through  the  inefficient 
railroad  service  of  the  last  two  years. 
Many  farmers  have  incurred  disastrous 


AMERICAN  AGRICULTURE  101 

losses  through  inability  to  market  their 
grain  and  live  stock.  Such  a  condition 
must  not  be  permitted  to  continue.  We 
must  bring  about  conditions  which  will 
give  us  prompt  service  at  the  lowest  pos 
sible  rates. 

"We  need  a  revision  of  the  tariff  as  soon 
as  conditions  shall  make  it  necessary  for 
the  preservation  of  the  home  market  for 
American  labor,  American  agriculture 
and  American  industry.  For  a  perma 
nent  good  fortune  all  must  have  a  common 
interest.  If  we  are  to  build  up  a  self-sus 
taining  agriculture  here  at  home,  the 
farmer  must  be  protected  from  unfair 
competition  from  those  countries  where 
agriculture  is  still  being  exploited  and 
where  the  standards  of  living  on  the  farm 
are  much  lower  than  here.  We  have 
asked  for  higher  American  standards,  let 
us  maintain  them. 

The  farmers  of  the  corn  belt,  for  exam 
ple,  are  already  threatened  with  unfair 


102  OTJR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

competition  from  the  Argentine,  whose 
rich  soil  is  being  exploited  in  heedless 
fashion  and  where  the  renters  who  farm 
it  are  living  under  conditions  more  miser 
able  than  the  poorest  tenants  in  the 
United  States.  In  times  past,  duties  on 
agricultural  products  were  largely  in  the 
nature  of  paper  tariffs,  for  we  were  a 
great  surplus-producing  nation.  Now 
that  consumption  at  home  is  so  nearly 
reaching  normal  production,  the  Amer 
ican  farmer  has  a  right  to  insist  that  in 
our  trade  relations  with  other  countries 
he  shall  have  the  same  consideration  that 
is  accorded  to  other  industries,  and  we 
mean  to  protect  them  all. 

So  long  as  America  can  produce  the 
foods  we  need,  I  am  in  favor  of  buying 
from  America  first.  It  is  this  very  pref 
erence  which  impels  development  and 
improvement.  Whenever  America  can 
manufacture  to  meet  American  needs — 
and  there  is  almost  no  limit  to  our  genius 


AMERICAN  AGRICULTURE  103 

and  resources — I  favor  producing  in 
America  first.  I  commend  American 
preference  for  American  productive  activ 
ities,  because  material  good  fortune  is 
essential  to  our  higher  attainment,  and 
linked  indissolubly  are  farm  and  factory 
in  the  economic  fabric  of  American  life. 
Under  a  sound  system  of  agriculture, 
fostered  and  safeguarded  by  wise  and  fair 
administration  of  state  and  federal  gov 
ernment,  the  farmers  of  the  United 
States  can  feed  our  people  for  many  cen 
turies — perhaps  indefinitely.  But  we 
must  understand  conditions,  and  make  a 
new  appraisal  of  relationships,  and 
square  our  actions  to  the  great  underly 
ing  foundation  of  all  human  endeavor. 
Farming  is  not  an  auxiliary,  it  is  the 
main  plant,  and  geared  with  it,  insepara 
bly,  is  every  wheel  of  transportation  and 
industry.  America  could  not  go  on  with 
a  dissatisfied  farming  people,  and  no 
nation  is  secure  where  land-hunger 


104  OTJR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

abides.  We  need  fewer  land-hogs  who 
menace  our  future,  and  more  fat  hogs  for 
ham  and  bacon.  We  need  less  beguile- 
ment  in  cultivating  a  quadrennial  crop  of 
votes  and  more  consideration  for  farming 
as  our  basic  industry.  We  need  less 
appeal  to  class  consciousness,  and  more 
resolute  intelligence  in  promptly  solving 
our  problems.  We  need  rest  and  recupe 
ration  for  a  soil  which  has  been  worked 
out  in  agitation,  and  more  and  better  har 
vests  in  the  inviting  fields  of  mutual 
understanding.  We  need  less  of  grief 
about  the  ills  which  we  may  charge  to  the 
neglect  of  our  own  citizenship,  and  more 
confidence  in  just  government,  along  with 
determination  to  make  and  hold  it  just. 

We  need  to  contemplate  the  miracle  of 
America  in  that  understanding  which 
enables  us  to  appreciate  that  which  made 
us  what  we  are,  and  then  resolve  to  cling 
fast  to  all  that  is  good  and  go  confidently 
on  to  great  things. 


AMERICAN  AGRICULTURE  105 

We  need  to  recall  that  America  and  its 
triumphs  are  not  a  gift  to  the  world 
through  a  paralyzing  internationality, 
but  the  glories  of  the  Republic  are  the 
fruits  of  our  nationality  and  its  inspira 
tions — of  freedom,  of  opportunity,  of 
equal  rights  under  the  Constitution,  of 
Columbia  offering  the  cup  of  American 
liberty  to  men  thirsting  to  achieve  and 
beckoning  men  to  drink  of  the  waters  of 
our  political  life  and  be  rewarded  as  they 
merit  it.  I  think  that  the  paths  which 
brought  us  to  the  point  where  the  world 
leadership  might  have  been  ours — as  it 
might  have  been  in  1919 — in  the  first  cen 
tury  and  a  third  of  national  life,  ought  to 
be  the  way  to  the  answered  aspirations  of 
this  great  Eepublic.  I  like  to  turn  for 
reflection  sometimes,  because  I  get 
therein  the  needed  assurance  for  the  on 
ward  march  of  the  morrow.  To-day  we 
have  contemplated  American  farming  in 
the  broadest  possible  way,  Kave  been 


106  OUR  COMMON"  COUNTRY 

reminded  where  we  have  been  remiss ;  to 
morrow  we  want  to  greet  farmers  of 
America  in  the  freedom  and  fulness  of 
farming  productivity,  impelled  by  the 
assurance  that  they  are  to  have  their  full 
part  in  the  rewards  of  righteous  Amer 
ican  activity. 


WHAT  OF  OUE  CHILDREN 

A  MESSAGE  FOE  MOTHERS 


CHAPTER  V 

WHAT  OF  OUR  CHILDREN 

IN  MY  address  to  women  voters  last 
October,  I  spoke  of  my  desire  that  there 
should  be  created  in  our  government  a 
department  of  public  welfare.  It  is  with 
some  satisfaction  that  I  am  now  able  to 
say  that  since  the  election  I  have  had 
opportunity  to  discuss  that  proposal  with 
a  number  of  leaders  of  liberal  public 
thought  in  and  out  of  Congress,  with  ref 
erence  to  crystallizing  it  into  legislative 
accomplishment,  and  have  found  them 
eager  to  help  in  the  constructive  task. 

Its  accomplishment  will  tardily  place 
our  government  on  something  like  an 
equal  footing  with  governments  which 
109 


110  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

have  long  maintained  ministries  of  educa 
tion  represented  in  their  Cabinets.  While 
my  own  ideal  envisages  a  broader  scope 
for  the  new  department,  giving  it  concern 
with  many  other  phases  of  human  wel 
fare,  it  is  interesting  to  know  that  its  cre 
ation  will  for  the  first  time  place  this 
great  work  on  a  phase  of  dignity  compar 
able  to  that  given  it  in  many  other 
countries. 

Whether  we  may  esteem  it  wise  or  un 
wise,  the  modern  mother  must  realize 
that  society  is  disposed  more  and  more  to 
take  from  her  control  the  training,  the 
intellectual  direction  and  the  spiritual 
guidance  of  her  children.  We  may  well 
plead  with  the  mothers  to  make  the  most 
for  good,  of  the  lessened  opportunity  they 
possess  for  molding  the  lives  and  minds 
of  their  children.  Through  such  coopera 
tive  effort  as  this  is,  it  seems  to  me,  there 
is  opportunity  for  a  great  service.  Here 
in  is  presented  the  opportunity  to  lift  up 


WHAT  OF  OTJR  CHILDREN  111 

the  poorer  and  the  less  fortunate  to  a 
higher  level. 

The  mother  who  indef  atigably  seeks  to 
train  her  own  children  rightly  will  be  per 
forming  this  service  not  only  for  her  own 
children,  but  for  those  from  other  homes 
not  so  richly  blessed  with  the  finer  things 
of  life.  I  confess  to  no  great  satisfaction 
in  the  good  fortune  of  those  families, 
which,  when  they  become  sufficiently  well 
to  do,  like  to  take  their  children  away 
from  the  public  schools  and  give  them  the 
doubtful  advantage  of  more  exclusive 
educational  processes.  I  like  the  democ 
racy  of  the  community  school  and,  indeed, 
I  would  like  to  see  a  greater  measure  of  it 
enforced  in  the  public  schools  by  the  elim 
ination  of  those  evidences  of  extrava 
gance  in  dress  and  social  indulgence 
which  make  for  the  development  of  some 
thing  like  caste  within  our  democracy. 

On  the  side  of  the  teacher  and  the  re 
sponsible  authorities  back  of  her,  there 


112  OUB  COMMON  COUNTRY 

must  be  the  same  ready  disposition  to 
cooperate  with  the  home  and  the  mother. 
Our  public  school  system  leaves  to  the 
home  and  its  influence  the  great  duty  of 
instilling  into  the  child  those  fundamental 
concepts  of  religion  which  are  so  essential 
in  shaping  the  character  of  individual  cit 
izens,  and,  therefore,  of  the  nation.  That 
duty  remains  to  be  performed  at  the 
hearthside  and  will  always  be  a  peculiar 
prerogative  of  the  mother.  I  could  wish, 
indeed,  that  our  nation  might  have  a 
revival  of  religious  spirit  along  these 
lines.  There  never  was  a  time  when  the 
world  stood  in  more  need  than  it  does  now 
of  the  consolations  and  reassurances 
which  only  a  firm  religious  faith  can 
have.  It  is  a  time  of  uncertainty,  of 
weakened  faith  in  the  efficiency  of  insti 
tutions,  of  industrial  systems,  of  economic 
hypothesis,  of  dictum  and  dogma.  What 
ever  our  realm,  let  not  our  engrossment 
with  those  things  which  are  concerned 


WHAT  OF  OUR  CHILDREN  US 

merely  with  matter  and  mind  distract 
from  proper  attention  to  those  which  are 
of  the  spirit  and  the  soul. 

It  has  been  demonstrated  to  astonishing 
and  alarming  certainty  that  a  large  pro 
portion  of  school  children  and  even  of 
adults  suffer  from  under-nourishment. 
Perhaps  in  the  case  of  most  adults  the 
fault  is  of  the  individual  rather  than 
society.  With  children,  however,  it  is 
otherwise.  If  society  has  permitted  the 
development  of  a  system  under  which  the 
citizens  of  to-morrow  suffer  real  priva 
tion  to-day,  then  the  obligation  is  upon 
society  to  right  that  wrong,  to  insure  some 
measure  of  justice  to  the  children,  who 
are  not  responsible  for  being  here. 

I  am  not  of  those  who  believe  legislation 
can  find  panaceas  for  all  ills,  but  on  the 
other  hand  I  am  not  of  those  who  fear  to 
undertake  through  legislation  the  formu 
lation  of  new  programs. 

I  firmly  believe  that  our  country,  along 


114  OUK  COMMON  COUNTRY 

with  others  that  claim  -a  share  in  the 
world's  leadership,  has  lately  achieved 
one  victory  in  behalf  of  a  better  under 
standing  and  more  intelligent  grasp  of 
these  problems.  I  refer  to  the  bestowal 
upon  women  of  full  participation  in  the 
privileges  and  obligations  of  citizenship. 
With  her  large  part  wider  in  influence  in 
the  world  of  affairs,  I  think  we  shall  see 
woman  and  her  finer  spiritual  instincts  at 
length  leading  mankind  to  higher  planes 
of  religion,  of  humanism  and  of  ennobling 
spirituality. 

Healthful  mothers  amid  fit  conditions 
for  maternity,  healthful,  abundantly 
nourished  children  amid  fit  conditions 
for  development  mentally  and  physically 
• — all  made  certain  by  the  generation  of 
to-day  in  its  concern  for  to-morrow,  will 
guarantee  a  citizenship  from  the  soil  of 
America  which  will  be  the  guarantee  of 
American  security  and  the  American 
fulfillment. 


THE  PRESS  AND  THE  PUBLIC 


A  MESSAGE  FOE  NEWSPAPERMEN 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  PRESS  AND  THE  PUBLIC 

THE  passing  years  have  wrought  great 
changes  in  the  newspaper  business  even 
in  the  comparatively  short  time  since  my 
adventurous  entry  upon  it.  The  prolific 
inventors  of  printing  machinery  and 
other  appliances  have  borne  their  share  in 
it ;  the  free  rural  delivery,  the  advance  in 
education  bringing  new  multitudes  of 
readers,  have  all  had  their  influence  in 
the  developments  and  evolutions  which 
have  followed.  I  can  remember  when  in 
most  of  the  county-seat  towns  the  posses 
sion  by  one  of  the  papers  of  a  power- 
press, — even  if  the  power  was  applied  by 
a  husky  man  attached  to  a  cranked  wheel, 
117 


118  OUR  COMMON"  COUNTRY 

— was  widely  proclaimed  as  an  evidence 
of  astounding  prosperity  and  recognized 
as  a  potential  influence. 

We  have  seen  the  type-setting  machines 
come  in — not  to  supplant  the  hand  com 
positor,  but  to  shift  him  to  the  "Ad. 
Alleys"  and  the  job  cases.  They  have 
taught  the  printers,  as  the  mowers  and 
reapers  have  taught  the  farmers,  that 
increased  capacity  in  production  does  not 
mean  a  lessening  of  a  demand  for  labor, 
but  on  the  contrary  increased  production, 
through  increased  efficiency,  mental, 
manual  or  mechanical,  opens  new  avenues 
for  employment  and  brings  luxuries  into 
the  class  of  common  commodities. 

The  diminished  numbers  of  country 
weekly  publications  came  in  the  extension 
of  the  rural  delivery  mail  carriers.  We 
learned  that  the  farmer  who  got  his  mail 
every  morning  at  his  front  door  would  not 
wait  a  week  or  even  two  or  three  days  for 
his  newspaper.  He  learned,  too,  what 


THE  PRESS  AND  THE  PUBLIC  119 

market  reports  meant  to  him.  Machinery 
had  lightened  his  toil  and  shortened  his 
hours,  except  seasonably,  and  he  had  time 
to  read  and  the  desire  to  be  informed. 
The  telephones  had  brought  him  in  touch 
with  some  news  centers  and  he  heard 
hints  which  he  wanted  confirmed.  Elec 
tricity  lighted  many  farm-houses  and 
lengthened  the  reading  period. 

The  rural  delivery  with  the  parcel  post 
also  wiped  out  many  of  the  cross-roads 
stores  where  the  rural  dweller  was  wont 
to  gather  for  neighborly  gossip  and  dis 
cussion  of  great  events,  and  this,  too,  had 
its  influence  in  broadening  the  demand 
for  the  daily  paper. 

Another  change  was  brought  about  by 
two  causes.  In  the  days  of  thirty  or 
forty  years  ago,  there  was  a  bitterness  and 
acerbity  about  political  discussion  which 
caused  the  factional  newspaper  to  multi 
ply  if  not  to  flourish.  It  was  not  diffi 
cult  to  start  a  newspaper  in  those  days. 


120  OUK  COMMON  COUNTRY 

A  very  small  amount  of  cash  and  a  little 
credit  would  procure  a  modest  plant,  and 
another  journal  would  be  " established" 
to  fight  its  owner's  quarrels  and  divide 
the  limited  patronage  of  its  limited  field. 

But  now  it  costs  real  money  to  equip  a 
newspaper  plant — to  install  linotype  ma 
chines,  fast  presses  and  type  in  quantities, 
and  it  costs  a  " fortune"  to  buy  news 
print.  The  "high  cost  of  printing"  has 
had  way  with  us  and  we  find  fewer  but 
generally  better  newspapers  than  we  had 
in  the  Ohio  counties  when  our  population 
was  half  what  it  is  now. 

The  changes  have  been  great,  but  I 
question  whether  they  have  all  been  in  the 
nature  of  improvements.  The  old-time 
paper —  going  back  to  the  last  half  of  last 
century — was  usually  a  real  journal  of 
opinion.  It  reflected  the  convictions  as 
well  as  the  opinions  of  its  owner  and 
editor,  and  it  was  a  real  molder  of  opinion 
in  its  influence  upon  its  readers  'and  the 


THE  PKESS  AND  THE  PtJBLIO  111 

community  it  served.  The  editors  were 
not  always  great  writers,  but  they  were 
generally  patriots,  and  honestly  desirous 
to  render  service.  And  they  were  gener 
ally  partisan  and  they  preached  party 
gospel  and  believed  in  it.  Sometimes  it 
seems  to  me  that  the  transition  from  the 
party  organ  to  the  " independent"  news 
paper,  so-called,  has  not  been  an  unmixed 
blessing.  The  partisan  newspaper,  in  its 
editorial  expression,  uttered  the  consid 
ered  views  of  a  large  element  of  our  citi 
zenship,  while  the  " independent"  paper 
is  often  the  organ  solely  of  its  owner,  or  it 
is  colorlessly  neutral. 

There  is  a  temptation  to  blend  shop  talk 
with  politics,  because  I  know  how  inti 
mately  newspaper  men  are  thinking  of 
the  problem  of  news  print,  the  cost  of 
which  has  added  so  excessively  to  the 
expense  account  of  every  newspaper. 
Men  speak  of  immediate  relief,  but  the 
problem  is  too  big  for  that. 


122  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

Permanent  and  ample  relief  must  come 
by  going  to  the  underlying  causes.  No 
forest  consumption  like  ours  can  go  on 
indefinitely  without  imperiling  our  pulp- 
wood  supply.  Competent  authority  tells 
us  that  the  pulpwood  in  New  York  State 
will  be  exhausted  in  ten  years,  that  New 
England  will  be  denuded  of  its  supply  in 
twenty  years.  Our  needs  are  so  vast  that 
we  imported  nearly  one  and  a  half  million 
tons  of  pulpwood  from  Canada  in  1918, 
and  the  Canadian  price  advanced  from 
ten  to  twenty-five  dollars  per  cord.  It  is 
obvious  that  we  must  have  a  forest  policy 
which  shall  make  us  self-reliant  once 
more.  We  ought  to  be  looking  ahead  to 
produce  our  timber  for  our  pulpwood 
needs  and  also  our  timber  for  our  lumber 
needs.  Forest  conservation  is  a  necessary 
accompaniment  to  printing  expansion, 
and  a  matter  of  common  concern  to  all  the 
people. 

Three-fifths  of  the  original  timber  in 


flDHE  PRESS  AND  THE  PUBLIC  123 

this  country  is  gone,  and  there  are  eighty 
million  idle  acres  in  which  we  ought  to  be 
growing  forests  for  the  future.  Planning 
for  the  future,  with  added  protection  of 
our  present  forests  from  fire,  is  a  matter 
of  deep  concern  to  publishers  in  particu 
lar,  but  to  all  of  constructive  America  as 
well. 

But  I  want  to  turn  your  thoughts  to  a 
service  in  the  columns.  There  is  one  ser 
vice  for  the  American  press,  not  partisan 
but  patriotic,  for  which  there  is  a  call 
to-day  such  as  we  have  never  known 
before.  America  needs  a  baptism  in 
righteousness  and  a  new  consecration  in 
morality. 

It  was  stated  the  other  day  that  a  reflex 
of  the  war  has  been  so  revealed  in  broken 
obligations  and  betrayed  trusts  that  the 
bonding  companies  are  called  upon  to 
meet  such  losses  that  the  whole  schedule 
for  fidelity  policies  must  be  rewritten. 
If  my  information  is  correct,  the  security 


124  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

companies  have  never  been  called  upon  to 
meet  so  many  and  such  heavy  losses  in  all 
the  history  of  that  business. 

Probably  the  betrayals  of  trust,  the 
smaller  ones  at  least,  are  in  part  due  to  the 
high  cost  of  living,  and  the  failure  of  sal 
ary  scales  to  respond  to  the  new  demands 
of  the  salaried  working  forces.  Many 
instances  are  reported,  however,  where 
salaries  were  ample  to  meet  even  extrav 
agant  practises,  and  the  sums  stolen  were 
beyond  all  limits  which  might  attend  liv 
ing  costs.  The  conclusion  is  forced  that 
it  is  a  reflex  of  the  moral  degeneracy  of 
war,  of  the  barbarity  and  cunning,  and 
ruthlessness  and  greed  in  war's  after 
math. 

There  was  so  much  of  extravagance,  so 
much  of  waste,  so  much  of  needless  expen 
ditures  in  seeking  for  speed  in  war  pre 
paration,  that  the  government  often  was 
robbed  without  scruple  of  conscience, 
often  without  hindrance.  It  is  not  sur- 


THE  PRESS  AND  THE  PUBLIC  123 

prising  to  find  a  reflex  in  offices  and 
counting  rooms. 

Call  it  reaction  if  you  like,  we  need  the 
old  standards  of  honesty,  the  lofty  stand 
ards  of  fidelity.  If  I  could  call  for  but 
one  distinction,  I  would  like  ours  to  be 
known  as  an  honest  people.  We  need 
the  stamp  of  common,  every-day  honesty, 
everywhere.  We  need  it  in  business,  we 
need  it  in  labor,  we  need  it  in  professions, 
in  pulpits,  in  editorial  rooms,  in  circula 
tion  count.  Aye,  we  need  it  in  politics,  in 
government,  in  our  daily  lives.  Dishon 
esty  and  corruption  had  more  to  do  with 
the  Russian  revolution  than  all  the  cru 
elty  of  autocracy. 

If  governments  and  their  diplomats 
in  Europe  had  been  honest,  there  would 
have  been  no  war.  If  everybody  con 
cerned  had  been  rigidly  honest,  peace 
might  have  followed  the  armistice  within 
ninety  days.  If  we  could  only  be  gen 
uinely  honest  with  one  another,  we  could 


126  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

put  an  end  to  industrial  and  social  unrest, 
and  if  we  were  only  honest  with  God,  we 
would  become  a  moral  and  religious  peo 
ple  again. 

I  suppose  some  people  will  say  I  am 
" looking  backward."  But  if  we  may 
look  backward  to  clear  our  vision  we  may 
look  forward  more  confidently,  and  lift 
our  gaze  above  and  beyond  the  sordid  and 
selfish  things  and  the  baser  side  of  life  so 
horridly  revealed  when  passions  are 
aflame.  There  is  sure  progress  for  a  sim 
ple-living,  reverent  people,  fearing  God 
and  loving  righteousness.  It  is  good  to 
look  back  to  make  sure  of  the  way  relig 
ious  mothers  taught  and  then  face  the 
front  with  renewed  faith. 

If  we  are  living  in  the  past  to  recall  the 
wisdom  of  Washington,  the  equal  rights 
of  Jefferson,  the  genius  of  Hamilton,  the 
philosophy  of  Franklin,  or  the  sturdiness 
of  Jackson;  if  it  is  looking  backward  to 
recall  the  sympathy  and  steadfastness  of 


THE  PRESS  AND  THE  PUBLIC  127 

Lincoln,  the  restoration  of  McKinley  or 
the  awakening  by  Roosevelt,  I  am  happy 
to  drink  of  the  past  for  my  inspiration  for 
the  morrow. 

Engineering  is  a  scientific  pursuit  and 
a  very  accurate  one.  It  has  been  my  for 
tune  to  witness  some  railway  surveys,  and 
I  never  knew  an  engineer  who  did  not 
turn  his  transit  to  his  back-sight  to  make 
sure  of  his  line  by  which  we  were  to  move 
on.  We  are  thinking  to-day  of  the  route 
by  which  America  is  to  go  on.  The  past 
is  secure,  and  I  would  like  to  project  our 
future  course  on  the  security  of  the  past. 

Something  has  been  said  lately  about 
looking  to  the  sunrise  of  to-morrow,  not 
the  sky-line  of  the  setting  sun.  Every 
hope  in  life  is  of  to-morrow,  we  could  not 
live  yesterdays  again  if  we  would.  But 
the  glory  of  ten  thousand  morrows  was 
wrought  in  the  wisdom  gleaned  on  yester 
day.  Mariners  and  planters  and  harvest 
ers — all  study  the  sky.  Sometimes  above 


128  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

the  sky-line,  in  lands  where  the  desert 
stretches,  there  is  the  mirage,  with  its  lure 
to  the  fevered  and  thirsting,  with  inviting 
promise  of  relief.  It  has  speeded  travel 
and  revived  hopes,  and  spurned  waning 
strength,  it  has  diverted  from  proved 
routes,  and  left  death  and  destruction  as 
its  monument  to  broken  promises.  In  the 
horizon  of  maintained  constitutionalism, 
there  is  no  mirage  to  lure  the  American 
caravan,  but  we  mean  to  go  securely  on, 
over  the  proved  routes  of  triumph  for  the 
republic  and  the  people  thereof. 

No  one  agency  can  render  a  greater  ser 
vice  in  holding  to  the  charted  way  than  a 
conscientious  and  patriotic  American 
press.  But  it  must  remain  free,  utterly 
free ;  along  with  freedom  of  speech,  free 
dom  of  religious  belief,  and  the  freedom 
of  righteous  pursuit,  it  must  be  honest 
and  it  must  be  rejoicing  in  American 
nationality  which  is  our  priceless 
possession. 


THE  THEATER 

A  MESSAGE  FOE  ACTOES 


CHAPTER  VII 

<• 

THE  THEATER 

WHETHER  one  contemplates  the  pres 
ent-day  stage  in  deference  to  its  part  in 
art  or  its  vast  opportunities  for  educa 
tional  work  or  its  commercial  importance, 
it  is  really  a  very  significant  factor  in  the 
activities,  progress  and  attainment  of  our 
common  country.  I  presume  many  had 
rather  be  estimated  from  the  purely  pro 
fessional  side  as  devotees  of  a  very  great 
and  appealing  art.  It  is  very  easy,  on  the 
other  hand,  for  the  practical  mind  to  be 
impressed  by  the  fact  that  the  United 
States  of  America  expends  approx 
imately  one  billion  dollars  per  year  for 
its  amusement  on  the  stage.  Perhaps 

131 


132  OXTK  COMMON  COUNTET 

nothing  more  significantly  reflects  the 
changed  condition  of  living  or  the  ability 
of  our  people  to  indulge  in  those  things 
which  are  counted  a  necessary  part  of  the 
fuller  modern  life. 

There  is  another  phase,  however,  which 
is  even  more  appealing  to  me.  I  do  not  in 
any  way  minimize  my  high  regard  for  the 
great  art  involved  in  the  splendid  work  of 
the  spoken  drama  or  the  musical  stage, 
but  the  coming  of  the  silent  drama  has 
revealed  to  us  an  agency  for  education 
which  no  human  being  could  have  reason 
ably  conceived  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago. 
We  have  no  single  avenue  for  the  dissem 
ination  of  information  equal  to  that  of 
the  moving  picture.  I  do  not  know  that 
any  one  now  has  an  approximate  measure 
of  the  possibilities  which  may  come.  Pic 
tures  are  very  convincing  things.  I  con 
fess  that  sometimes  the  camera  fools  us 
more  or  less,  but,  as  a  general  proposition, 
it  is  a  very  dependable  agency  of  the 


THE  THEATER  133 

truth,  and  it  has  the  facility  for  conveying 
essential  educational  truths  to  the  remot 
est  parts  of  the  world. 

Nothing  is  more  remarkable  than  the 
enlarged  enjoyment  of  the  drama  through 
picture  distribution. ,  It  is  only  a  few 
years  ago  that  the  rural  community  saw 
very  little  of  the  drama  and  much  of  what 
it  saw  was  not  to  be  taken  as  a  very  credit 
able  example  of  the  best  in  dramatic  art. 
Most  artists  have  a  very  strong  aversion 
to  what  is  properly  known  as  barnstorm 
ing,  and  really  worth-while  stage  enter 
tainment  was  a  very  rare  thing  in  the 
rural  communities.  Many  of  us  had 
examples  of  home  production  in  which  we 
yielded  to  a  very  natural  inclination  to  act 
some  part.  This  manifestation  is  one 
which  we  developed  rather  unconsciously 
from  the  earliest  days  in  the  public 
schools.  The  recitation  or  the  declama 
tion,  so  frequently  employed  by  schooling 
youths  and  encouraged  in  every  home,  is 


134  OUR  COMMON"  COUNTRY 

only  one  of  the  early  tendencies  of  the 
dramatic  art. 

I  will  not  venture  to  recall  my  recollec 
tions  of  the  amateur  stage  and  the  home 
production,  or  any  part  I  had  therein,  but 
I  do  recall  that  out  of  the  atmosphere  of 
the  small  town  stage  has  come  many  a  star 
to  illumine  the  theatrical  world.  It  has 
seemed  to  me  that  there  are  two  elemental 
essentials  to  the  inauguration  of  a  dra 
matic  career :  one  is  native  talent  and  the 
other  is  opportunity  for  its  development. 
With  these,  of  course,  must  be  ambition 
and  determination,  because  there  is  no 
eminence  attained  in  human  life  without 
these.  It  is  befitting  to  recall  that  no 
actor  or  actress  ever  wrought  an  abiding 
triumph  on  any  stage,  without  knowing 
the  soul  of  the  character  enacted,  and  we 
Americans,  to  enact  our  part  in  the  drama 
of  world  civilization,  must  know  the  soul 
of  America,  and  play  the  part  of  real 
Americans. 


THE   THEATER  135 

j 

If  it  will  not  seem  out  of  place,  I  want 
to  convey  one  message  to  the  associates  in 
the  various  activities  of  the  stage  world. 
I  think  we  have  been  making  noble  prog 
ress  in  the  attainment  of  high  quality  and 
the  elevation  of  standards.  I  would  like 
the  American  stage  to  be  like  American 
citizenship,  the  best  in  all  the  world.  I 
think  the  inspiration  for  success  lies  in 
ever  lifting  the  standards  higher  and 
higher.  It  is  extremely  necessary  to  con 
tinue  to  elevate  the  standards  of  the  silent 
drama,  because  we  send  the  picture  stage 
to  all  the  people  of  the  United  States  and 
it  is  of  common  concern  that  its  influence 
must  be  the  very  best.  I  do  not  think  a 
people  can  be  fortunate  with  various 
standards  of  censorship.  I  presume  cen 
sorship  is  very  essential,  but  I  do  not 
think  we  require  one  standard  for  one 
locality  and  another  standard  for  an 
other.  We  must  ever  be  on  guard  against 
debasement  for  momentary  gain,  on  the 


136  OTJR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

one  hand,  and  against  narrow  exaction 
which  destroys  the  artistic  merit  of  a  pro 
duction  and  the  real  lesson  intended,  on 
the  other.  However,  there  is  nothing  so 
essential  to  the  highest  art  that  it  need  be 
offensive  to  becoming  public  morals. 

Without  venturing  to  quote  the  very 
familiar  reference  to  all  the  world  as  a 
stage,  I  have  been  thinking  lately  that 
there  is  a  great  likeness  between  political 
life  under  popular  government  and  many 
of  our  most  successful  productions  on  the 
stage.  Some  of  the  most  impressive  plays 
I  have  ever  witnessed  have  been  those 
where  all  that  interest  is  not  riveted  in  the 
lead.  For  example,  in  the  production  of 
Julius  Ccesar,  which  attracted  the  atten 
tion  of  much  of  the  foremost  talent  of  the 
stage,  one  great  actor  would  choose  to  por 
tray  the  character  of  Cassius,  another 
may  have  elected  to  play  the  part  of  Bru 
tus,  still  another  thought  to  assume  the 
role  of  Caesar  himself.  The  work  of  the 


THE  THEATER  137 

lead  was  not  transcendent,  but  the  effect 
iveness  of  the  play  was  dependent  on  the 
perfection  with  which  every  character 
was  presented.  To  my  mind  it  is  the  ideal 
spoken  production  where  each  one  plays 
his  part  with  soul  and  enthusiasm,  no 
matter  how  insignificant  the  part  may  be, 
so  that  out  of  the  grouped  endeavor  comes 
the  perfect  offering. 

There  is  an  element  in  every  production 
quite  as  essential  in  the  modern  produc 
tion  as  the  acting  caste,  which  must  work 
with  spirit  and  devotion  and  which  the 
public  never  sees.  I  refer  to  the  forces 
behind  the  scenes,  who  dress  the  picture 
for  either  spoken  or  silent  drama.  I  do 
not  assume  to  mention  all  elements  essen 
tial  to  the  modern  stage,  but  I  do  want  to 
remind  the  public  that  on  the  stage,  as  in 
life,  are  ever  the  faithful  and  the  tireless 
without  whom  we  could  not  accomplish, 
but  who  themselves  rarely  appear  on  the 
stage.  Their  applause  must  come  in  the 


138  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

soul  of  their  work  and  the  consciousness 
of  things  well  done. 

There  are  many  plays  especially  writ 
ten  for  notable  stars  and  their  presenta 
tion  has  depended  on  the  work  of  one 
portraying  genius.  There  is,  of  course,  a 
fascination  in  the  one-lead  drama,  but  it 
makes  the  spectator  very  much  dependent 
upon  one  individuality,  and  if  the  star 
should  be  incapacitated  for  any  reason, 
there  is  inevitable  disappointment.  I 
think  it  is  a  very  practical  thing  to  sug 
gest  that  our  American  popular  govern 
ment  ought  not  to  be  a  one-lead  or  a  one- 
star  drama  of  modern  civilization.  I 
want  to  commend  the  policy  of  each  and 
every  one  having  his  part  to  play,  and  we 
all  must  play  with  enthusiasm  in  order  to 
perfect  the  whole  production.  For  the 
supreme  offering,  we  need  the  all-star 
cast,  presenting  America  to  all  the  world. 

Running  over  in  my  mind  some  of  my 
recollections  of  the  stage,  I  recall  two 


THE  THEATER  139 

plays,  the  production  of  which  left  an 
impress  that  I  shall  never  forget,  espec 
ially  in  their  bearing  on  the  present  state 
of  human  affairs.  In  one,  Forbes  Eobert- 
son  played  the  leading  role — The  Passing 
of  the  Third  Floor  Back.  The  Stranger 
in  the  play  urged  upon  a  discordant,  sus 
picious  boarding-house  family,  the  gospel 
of  simplicity  and  honesty  and  under 
standing.  With  a  rare  sympathy  and 
great  patience,  and  with  wholesome  good 
sense  and  a  fine  example  in  himself,  he 
transformed  the  household  and  planted 
happiness  where  discord  had  flourished, 
and  rended  hypocrisy,  and  put  an  end  to 
cheating,  and  drove  snobbery  out,  and  set 
the  flowers  of  fellowship  abloom.  We 
need  the  lesson  this  Stranger  taught,  in 
our  American  lives  and  throughout  the 
world.  His  was  no  radical  teaching,  his 
was  not  a  highly  dramatic  or  sensational 
example,  there  really  was  not  a  very  strik 
ing  " punch"  in  a  thing  that  he  said,  but 


140  OUK  COMMON  COUNTRY 

the  Stranger  was  soothing  and  helpful 
and  encouraging  and  uplifting,  and  he 
left  sunshine  where  the  shadows  of  gloom 
had  darkened,  and  he  did  it  all  through 
sympathy  and  understanding.  He  uncov 
ered  reality  and  put  pretense  aside. 

The  other  play  was  one  of  Mansfield's 
superb  productions — Henry  V,  if  my 
memory  is  correct.  I  particularly  recall 
a  camp  scene  on  the  night  before  a  crucial 
battle,  and  as  I  recall  it  now  the  King  put 
aside  his  regal  garb,  and  clad  as  a  simple 
soldier  went  among  his  armed  forces  to 
learn  their  feelings,  their  confidence,  and 
their  fears,  and  ascertained  on  terms  of 
equality  and  intimacy,  what  a  monarch 
might  never  have  learned  in  any  other 
way.  And  he  found  that  the  heart  of  his 
army  was  right.  He  asked  concerning 
the  morrow  and  he  found  the  confidence 
of  the  rank  and  file  to  be  the  assurance  of 
a  King,  and  together  they  fought  in  tri 
umph  the  next  day. 


THEATER  141 

There  is  no  kingship  in  this  Republic, 
but  thoughtful  Americans  are  wondering 
about  the  morrow.  Is  our  civilization 
secure  ?  It  is  well  to  know  what  is  in  the 
hearts  of  men  and  women,  who  are  gath 
ered  before  the  camp-fires  of  human 
progress.  There  is  a  memory  of  yester 
day,  the  horizon  of  to-day,  and  the  new 
hope  of  to-morrow.  Every  normal  human 
being  wishes  for  a  better  morrow  than 
to-day.  Every  parent  in  America  wishes 
for  his  son  or  daughter  all  that  he  inher 
ited,  and  more.  That  is  why  humanity  is 
ever  an  advancing  procession. 

But  no  sane  man  ever  puts  aside  an 
assurance  of  experience  for  the  promise 
of  more  experiment.  The  world  can  not 
be  stabilized  on  dreams,  but  can  be 
steadied  by  evident  truths.  It  is  perfectly 
normal  humanity  which  delights  in  a  new 
sensation.  One  can  only  pity  a  people 
which  becomes  blase.  It  is  better  to  be 
simple  than  surfeited.  The  new  thrill  is 


142  OUK  COMMON  COUNTKY 

sought  on  the  stage  and  is  sought  every 
where  in  human  life.  Some  of  our  people 
lately  have  been  wishing  to  become  "  citi 
zens  of  the  world.''  Not  so  long  since  I 
met  a  fine  elderly  daughter  of  Virginia, 
who  would  have  been  justified  in  boasting 
her  origin  in  the  Old  Dominion  and  utter 
ing  her  American  pride,  but  I  was 
shocked  to  hear  her  say,  "I  am  no  longer 
an  American,  I  am  a  citizen  of  the  world." 
Frankly,  I  am  not  so  universal,  I  rejoice 
to  be  an  American  and  love  the  name,  the 
land,  the  people  and  the  flag. 


AMERICAN  EDUCATION 


A  MESSAGE  FOB  TEACHERS 


'CHAPTER  VIII 

AMERICAN  EDUCATION 

MY  mind  runs  back  to  something  like 
thirty-eight  years  ago  when  I  was  in 
attendance  as  a  teacher  at  a  Marion 
County  Institute.  I  had  come  from  col 
lege  only  the  year  before,  and  I  did  what 
was  very  much  the  practise  of  that  time — 
turned  to  teaching  in  my  abundant  ful 
ness  of  knowledge,  merely  as  a  temporary 
occupation. 

It  is  a  very  inspiring  thing  to  be  a 
teacher  of  American  youth.  In  our  mod 
ern  life  we  have  shifted  some  of  the 
responsibility  which  I  think  should 
accrue  to  parenthood  over  to  the  teachers 
in  our  public  schools.  So  school-teachers 

145 


146  OTJB  COMMON  COUNTED 

have  much,  to  do  with  making  the  citizen 
ship  in  this  Republic  of  ours,  and  they 
ought  to  be  the  best  rated  profession,  the 
best  cared  for  profession  in  America.  I 
believe  that  our  teachers  should  be  com 
pensated  as  liberally,  if  not  more  liber 
ally,  than  any  other  profession.  I  do  not 
try  to  give  you  the  impression  that  the 
federal  government  can  do  that;  but  we 
do  have  a  Federal  Bureau  of  Education 
which  has  only  a  relative  influence  on 
educational  work.  Some  day  we  may 
have  a  much  larger  and  more  important 
Department  of  Education;  but  in  any 
event  the  federal  government  can  exert 
its  influence  in  behalf  of  a  becoming  rec 
ognition  of  the  teaching  profession. 

I  do  not  believe  that  all  which  has  been 
placed  on  the  shoulders  of  our  teachers 
ought  to  be  taken  from  the  American 
homes.  I  will  not  discuss  that  at  length, 
but  I  do  think  teachers  ought  to  know  the 
home  a  little  more  intimately,  and  ought 


AMEKICAN  EDUCATION  147 

to  have  the  cooperation  of  the  parents  and 
the  home. 

I  am  not  sure  I  was  a  very  good  teacher, 
but  I  was  at  least  ambitious  to  be  a  good 
one.  I  taught  in  a  country  school.  If  you 
have  never  done  that  you  don't  know  the 
real  pleasure  of  teaching.  "We  had  all  the 
branches  of  elementary  teaching,  up  to 
the  heights  of  algebra  and  general  his 
tory.  One  day  I  put  on  the  blackboard 
the  forms  for  addressing  and  closing  a  let 
ter.  After  explanations,  I  erased  the 
blackboard  form  and  asked  the  pupils  to 
address  me  a  letter  on  their  slates.  One 
obstinate  youth  refused,  and  I  was 
obliged  to  discipline  him.  He  happened 
to  be  a  son  of  one  of  the  school  directors 
who  compensated  me  for  my  unusual 
interest  in  his  boy  by  writing  me  that  I 
was  engaged  to  teach  what  was  in  the  text 
book,  namely,  reading,  writing,  and  arith 
metic,  and  not  to  go  beyond.  So  he  de 
clined  to  sign  my  pay  warrant!  That 


148  OUR  COMMON"  COUNTRY 

actually    happened    only    about    thirty- 
eight  years  ago. 

Our  teachers  represent  the  great  army 
of  those  patient  soldiers  in  the  cause  of 
humanity  upon  whom  rests  one  of  the 
most  profound  responsibilities  given  to 
any  man  or  woman.  And  yet  the  disad 
vantages  that  beset  their  profession  indi 
cate  a  serious  menace  to  Our  national 
institutions.  It  is,  indeed,  a  crisis  in 
American  education  that  confronts  us. 
If  we  continue  to  allow  our  public  instruct 
ors  to  struggle  with  beggarly  wages  we 
shall  find  ourselves  with  closed  schools; 
our  education  will  languish  and  fail.  It 
is  a  patent  fact  that  never  have  our  teach 
ers,  as  a  whole,  been  properly  compen 
sated.  From  the  days  when  the  country 
teachers  " boarded  around"  to  the  present 
hour  the  profession  has  never  been  ade 
quately  compensated.  Requiring,  as  it 
does,  a  high  degree  of  mental  equipment, 
a  long  preparation,  severe  examination 


AMERICAN  EDUCATION  149 

tests,  the  maintenance  of  a  proper  state  in 
society,  and  giving  employment  only  a 
part  of  the  year,  with  compensation  too 
meager,  the  wonder  of  it  is  that  we  have 
had  the  service  of  these  devoted  persons 
employed  in  educating, our  youth. 

I  have  a  personal  recollection  of  the 
old-time  estimate  of  school  teaching, 
because  I  taught  one  session  of  district 
school.  For  the  autumn  months  I 
received  twenty  dollars  per  month,  for  the 
winter  double  the  price,  not  that  I  taught 
better  or  more,  but  probably  because  I 
built  the  fires  and  had  more  sweeping  to 
do.  But  then,  and  earlier,  teaching  was 
not  a  life  profession,  but  rather  a  resort 
to  youth's  temporary  earnings,  to  help 
prepare  for  something  else.  To-day 
teaching  is  a  life  work,  a  great  profession, 
a  life  offering  on  the  altar  of  American 
advancement. 

Education  is  recognized  in  our  organic 
law,  but  it  did  not  need  that  declaration. 


350  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

America's  greatness,  her  liberty,  and  her 
happiness  are  founded  upon  her  intelli 
gence.  They  are  founded  upon  that  wide 
dissemination  of  knowledge  which  comes 
only  to  the  many  through  our  educational 
system. 

This  subject  touches  every  individual 
in  America,  All  of  us  are  concerned  in 
our  common  schools.  We  ought  to  be  as 
interested  in  our  teacher's  pay  as  we  are 
in  our  own.  We  can't  be  confident  of  our 
schools  unless  we  are  confident  of  our 
teachers  and  know  they  are  the  best  that 
a  great  work  may  command. 

Whatever  the  cause  may  be  for  failure 
to  recognize  the  value  of  the  teacher, 
measured  in  wages,  it  is  a  lamentable  fact 
that  the  teacher  has  done  his  patient  serv 
ice  improperly  rewarded  through  all  the 
years.  The  burdens  of  the  teachers  have 
increased,  greater  exactions  as  to  fitness 
have  been  imposed,  the  cost  of  living  has 


AMERICAN  EDUCATION  151 

gone  up,  but  we  have  failed  to  meet  the 
change. 

"We  have  now  reached  a  crisis,  when  it 
is  imperative  that  something  must  be 
done.  I  know  with  what  difficulty  our 
public  schools  have  been  operated  during 
the  past  two  or  three  years.  Teachers 
have  left  the  schools  for  more  promising 
employments  and  their  places  have  been 
left  unfilled  with  new  enlistments.  This 
condition  is  not  only  fatal  if  continued, 
but  it  reflects  discredit  upon  every  citi 
zen  who  has  not  demanded  correction  of 
the  evil.  We  make  drafts  upon  our  pub 
lic  treasuries,  we  are  taxed,  sometimes 
unnecessarily,  for  almost  every  other  con 
ceivable  purpose.  Let  us  support  ade 
quately  the  standards  of  our  schools.  Let 
all  Americans  recognize  the  necessity  and 
determine  upon  relief.  When  the  facts 
are  known,  America  and  Americans  will 
respond. 

It  is  fair  to  say  that  the  federal  govern- 


152  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

ment  is  not  responsible  and  can  not  as 
sume  to  trespass,  but  it  can  give  of  its 
influence,  it  can  point  out  the  peril  which 
ought  to  be  clearly  evident  to  every  com 
munity,  it  can  emphasize  the  present 
crisis  and  make  an  unfailing  call  for  the 
educational  preparedness  for  citizenship 
which  is  so  essential  to  our  continued 
triumphs. 

It  is  a  rather  curious  indication  of  the 
trend  toward  federal  control  that  at  this 
very  moment  not  less  than  four  or  five 
new  Cabinet  officers  are  being  proposed 
— and  not  without  argument,  let  me  say. 
Some  feel  there  should  be  a  reorganiza 
tion  of  the  Department  of  the  Interior, — 
they  want  to  create  this  and  that — and 
not  without  reason,  too,  because  it  has 
become  a  tremendous  government  within 
itself.  There  is  one  call  for  a  department 
of  engineering — another  for  a  depart 
ment  of  health,  and  thus  I  might  run  on. 
I  can  not  pretend  to  say  to  you  what  ought 


AMERICAN  EDUCATION  153 

to  be  done  in  each  instance,  but  I  can  say 
that  I  am  concerned  just  as  deeply  as  you 
are  respecting  this  question  of  bringing 
American  education  up  to  the  very  high 
est  standard. 


THE  IMMIGRANT 

A  MESSAGE  FOE  CITIZENS  OF  FOREIGN  BIRTH 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  IMMIGRANT 

You  who  are  men  and  women  of  foreign 
birth,  I  do  not  address  as  men  and  women 
of  foreign  birth ;  I  address  you  as  Amer 
icans,  and  through  you  I  would  like  to 
reach  all  the  American  people.  I  have  no 
message  for  you  which  is  not  addressed  to 
all  the  American  people,  and,  indeed,  I 
would  consider  it  a  breach  of  courtesy  to 
you  and  a  breach  of  my  duty  to  address 
myself  to  any  group  or  special  interest  or 
to  any  class  or  race  or  creed.  We  are  all 
Americans,  and  all  true  Americans  will 
say,  as  I  say,  " America  First!" 

Let  us  all  pray  that  America  shall  never 
become   divided   into   classes   and   shall 
157 


158  OUK  COMMON  COUNTRY 

never  feel  the  menace  of  hyphenated  citi 
zenship!  Our  uppermost  thought  to-day 
comes  of  the  awakening  which  the  World 
War  gave  us.  We  had  developed  the 
great  American  Eepublic ;  we  had  become 
rich  and  powerful,  but  we  had  neglected 
the  American  soul.  When  the  war  clouds 
darkened  Europe  and  the  storm  threat 
ened  our  own  country,  we  found  America 
torn  with  conflicting  sympathies  and 
prejudices.  They  were  not  unnatural; 
indeed  they  were,  in  many  cases,  very 
excusable,  because  we  had  not  promoted 
the  American  spirit ;  we  had  not  insisted 
upon  full  and  unalterable  consecration  to 
our  own  country — our  country  by  birth  or 
adoption.  We  talked  of  the  American 
melting  pot  over  the  fires  of  freedom,  but 
we  did  not  apply  that  fierce  flame  of 
patriotic  devotion  needed  to  fuse  all  into 
the  pure  metal  of  Americanism. 

I    do    not    blame    the    foreign    born. 
Charge  it  to  American  neglect.    We  pro- 


THE  IMMIGRANT  159 

claimed  our  liberty,  but  did  not  empha 
size  the  essentials  to  its  preservation.  We 
boasted  our  nationality,  but  we  did  not 
magnify  the  one  great  spirit  essential  to 
perfect  national  life. 

I  speak  for  the  fullest  American  devo 
tion  ;  not  in  putting  aside  all  the  tenderer 
and  dearer  attributes  of  the  human  heart, 
but  in  the  consecrations  of  citizenship. 
It  is  not  possible,  and  it  ought  not  to  be 
expected,  that  Americans  of  foreign  birth 
shall  stifle  love  for  kinsfolk  in  the  lands 
from  which  they  came.  It  would  be  a 
poor  material  for  the  making  of  an  Amer 
ican  if  one  of  foreign  birth  would,  or 
could,  be  insensible  to  the  fortunes  of 
father  and  mother,  or  grandfathers  and 
grandmothers,  of  brothers  and  sisters ;  if 
he  could  be  insensible  to  the  fortunes  of 
the  people  from  whom  he  came.  Amer 
ica  does  not  want,  and  does  not  ask  that. 
We  want  the  finer  attributes  of  humanity 
in  all  our  citizenship,  and  we  wish  these 


160  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

lovable  traits  in  foreign-born  and  Amer 
ican-born.  But  we  do  ask  all  to  think  of 
"America  First;"  to  serve  "America 
First,"  to  defend  "America  First,"  and 
plight  an  unalterable  faith  in  "America 
First." 

We  are  unalterably  against  any  present 
or  future  hyphenated  Americanism. 
We  have  put  an  end  to  prefixes.  The  way 
to  unite  and  blend  foreign  blood  in  the 
life  stream  of  America  is  to  put  an  end  to 
groups ;  an  end  to  classes ;  an  end  to  spe 
cial  appeal  to  any  of  them ;  an  end  to  par 
ticular  favor  for  any  of  them.  Let's  fix 
our  gaze  afresh  on  the  Constitution,  with 
equal  riglits  to  all,  and  put  an  end  to  spe 
cial  favors  at  home  and  special  influence 
abroad,  and  think  of  the  American,  erect 
and  confident  in  the  rights  of  his  citizen 
ship. 

I  like  to  think  of  an  America  without 
sectional  lines,  an  America  without  class 
groups.  I  do  not  mean  the  natural  fellow- 


THE  IMMIGKAOT  161 

ship  or  fraternity,  that  association  which 
comes  from  wholesale  human  traits.  I 
am  thinking  of  the  selfish  grouping  that 
made  us  sectional,  and  the  selfish  group 
ing  which  makes  for  classes,  and  the  self 
ish  grouping  which  looks  to  government 
to  promote  selfish  ends  rather  than  the 
good  of  our  common  country. 

I  like  to  think  of  an  America  where 
every  citizen's  pride  in  power  and 
resources,  in  influence  and  progress,  is 
founded  on  what  can  be  done  for  our  peo 
ple,  all  our  people;  not  what  we  may 
accomplish  to  the  political  or  national 
advantage  of  this  or  that  people  in  dis 
tant  lands. 

It  was  my  official  duty  to  sit  with  the 
Senate  Committee  on  Foreign  Relations 
when  it  was  hearing  the  American  spokes 
men  for  foreign  peoples,  during  the  peace 
conference  at  Paris.  Under  the  rules,  we 
could  give  hearing  only  to  Americans, 
though  many  whom  we  had  no  right  to 


162  OUB  COMMON  COUNTRY 

hear  sought  to  bring  their  appeal  to  the 
Senate,  as  though  it  possessed  some  sense 
of  justice  which  had  no  voice  in  Paris. 
We  heard  the  impassioned  appeals  of 
Americans  of  foreign  birth  on  behalf  of 
the  lands  from  which  they  came — where 
their  kinsfolk  resided.  No  one  doubted 
their  sincerity;  no  one  questioned  their 
right  to  be  interested.  But  for  me  there 
was  a  foreboding,  a  growing  sense  of 
apprehension. 

How  can  we  have  American  concord; 
how  can  we  expect  American  unity ;  how 
can  we  escape  strife,  if  we  in  America 
attempt  to  meddle  in  the  affairs  of 
Europe  and  Asia  and  Africa;  if  we 
assume  to  settle  boundaries ;  if  we  attempt 
to  end  the  rivalries  and  jealousies  of  cen 
turies  of  Old  World  strife?  It  is  not 
alone  the  menace  which  lies  in  involve 
ment  abroad;  it  is  the  greater  danger 
which  lies  in  conflict  among  adopted 
Americans. 


THE  IMMIGRANT  163 

This  is  the  objection  to  the  foreign  pol 
icy  attempted,  not  with  the  advice  and 
consent  of  the  Senate,  but  in  spite  of 
warning  informally  uttered.  America 
wants  the  good  will  of  foreign  peoples, 
and  it  does  not  want  the  ill  will  of  foreign- 
born  who  have  come  to  dwell  among  us. 

Nothing  helpful  has  come  from  the  wil 
ful  assumption  to  direct  the  affairs  of 
Europe.  No  good  of  any  kind  has  pro 
ceeded  from  such  meddling  in  Russia. 
None  in  the  case  of  Poland.  None  in  the 
case  of  the  Balkan  States.  None  in  the 
case  of  Fiume.  On  the  contrary,  the  mis 
taken  policy  of  interference  has  broken 
the  draw-strings  of  good  sense  and  spilled 
bad  counsel  and  bad  manners  all  over  the 
world. 

That  policy,  my  countrymen,  is  a  bad 
policy.  It  is  bad  enough  abroad,  but  it  is 
even  more  menacing  at  home.  Meddling 
abroad  tends  to  make  Americans  forget 
that  they  are  Americans.  It  tends  to 


164  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

arouse  the  old  and  bitter  feelings  of  race, 
or  former  nationality,  or  foreign  ances 
try,  in  the  hearts  of  those  who  ought  never 
to  be  forced  to  turn  their  hearts  away 
from  undivided  loyalty  and  interest  given 
to  "America  First." 

I  want  America  on  guard  against  that 
course  which  naturally  tends  to  array 
Americans  against  one  another.  I  do  not 
know  whether  or  not  Washington  foresaw 
this  menace  when  he  warned  us  against 
entangling  alliances  and  meddling 
abroad,  but  I  see  it,  and  I  say  to  you  that 
all  America  must  stand  firm  against  this 
dangerous  and  destructive  and  un-Amer 
ican  policy.  Meddling  is  not  only  danger 
ous  to  us,  because  it  leads  us  into  the  en 
tanglements  against  which  Washington 
warned  us  but  it  also  threatens  an  Amer 
ica  divided  in  her  own  household,  and 
tends  to  drive  into  groups  seeking  to  make 
themselves  felt  in  our  political  life,  men 
and  women  whose  hearts  are  led  away 
4 


IMMIGKANT  165 

from  " America  First"  to  "Hyphen 
First!" 

For  Americans  who  love  America,  I 
sound  a  warning.  The  time  might  come 
when  a  group  or  groups  of  men  and 
women  of  foreign  birttt  or  foreign  parent 
age,  not  organized  for  the  interest  of 
America,  but  organized  around  a  resent 
ment  against  our  government  interfer 
ence  abroad  in  their  land  of  origin,  might 
press,  by  propaganda  and  political  hy- 
phenism,  upon  our  government  to  serve 
their  own  interests  rather  than  the  inter 
ests  of  all  America.  It  is  not  beyond  possi 
bility  that  the  day  might  come — and  may 
God  forbid  it! — when  an  organized  hy 
phenated  vote  in  American  politics  might 
have  the  balance  of  voting  power  to  elect 
our  government.  If  this  were  true,  Amer 
ica  would  be  delivered  out  of  the  hands  of 
her  citizenship,  and  her  control  might  be 
transferred  to  a  foreign  capital  abroad. 

I  address  this  warning  to  you  because 


166  OTTB  COMMON  COUNTRY 

though  it  is  a  message  to  all  Americans 
which  you  may  spread  widecast,  never 
theless  it  is  of  even  greater  concern  to  you, 
who  were  born  on  other  soil,  or  whose  par 
ents  were  born  upon  other  soil,  than  it  is 
to  any  one  else  in  all  the  world.  America 
is  peculiarly  your  America.  Men  and 
women  of  foreign  blood,  indeed,  are 
Americans.  They  have  come  here  because, 
under  our  Eepublic,  grown  upon  a  firm 
foundation,  there  is  liberty,  and  the  light 
of  democracy  which  shines  in  the  hearts 
of  all  mankind.  America  is  yours  to  pre 
serve,  not  as  a  land  of  groups  and  classes, 
races  and  creeds,  but  America,  the  ONE 
America!  the  United  States,  " America 
the  Everlasting ! ' ' 

Let  us  all  remember,  however,  that 
" America  First"  does  not  mean  that  the 
America  which  we  all  love  and  under 
whose  flag  we  must  always  remain  a  peo 
ple  united  is  to  be  an  American  blind  to 
the  welfare  of  humanity  throughout  the 


THE  IMMIGRANT  167 

world  or  deaf  to  the  call  of  world  civili 
zation.  But  our  ability  to  be  helpful  to 
mankind  and  our  preparation  for  leader 
ship  lies  in  first  being  secure  at  home, 
and  mighty  in  our  citizenship.  Therein 
lies  strength ;  therein  is  the  source  of  help 
ful  example. 

Let  us  say  it  to  native-born  and  to  for 
eign-born — our  citizenship  ought  to  be 
founded  first  upon  our  sense  of  service; 
we  must  not  be  deluded  by  the  idea  that 
government  is  a  magic  source  of  benevo 
lence.  No  government  can  ever  give  out 
more  resources  than  its  citizens  put  in. 
Just  as  good  citizenship,  whatever  its 
creed,  or  race,  means  " America  First," 
so  also  good  government  means  the  wel 
fare  of  all  its  citizens. 

I  insist  that  American  conscience  recog 
nize  the  duty  of  protecting  our  national 
health.  I  insist  that  it  protect  American 
motherhood,  and  American  childhood, 
and  the  American  home.  I  insist  that  it 


168  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

place  the  welfare  of  the  human  being 
above  all  else.  I  insist  that  it  act,  not 
only  to  give  the  weak,  and  those  who  need 
protection,  and  who  righteously  should 
have  social  justice,  their  due,  but  because 
the  concern  for  the  less  fortunate  is  an 
interest  of  us  all. 

Above  all,  we  must  give  our  attention 
as  a  nation,  to  American  childhood,  be 
cause  American  childhood  is  the  future 
citizenship  of  America. 

Health  comes  first.  The  war  disclosed 
that  between  a  fourth  and  a  third  of  our 
young  men  in  the  draft  were  physically 
delinquent.  Examination  of  our  school 
children  in  various  cities  discloses  that 
nearly  fifty  per  cent,  of  them — boys  and 
girls — have  physical  defects,  most  of 
which  can  be  remedied  if  discovered  in 
time.  I  do  not  discuss  at  the  moment  the 
relation  of  federal  health  agencies  to  local 
health  agencies,  but  I  do  say  that  we 
must  insist  upon  an  American  conscience 
acting  at  once  to  raise  our  health  stand- 


THE  IMMIGRANT  169 

ards,  especially  as  they  bear  upon  the  wel 
fare  of  American  childhood. 

There  can  be  no  defense  for  working 
conditions  which  rob  the  American  child 
of  its  rights,  just  as  there  can  be  no 
defense  of  an  industrial  life  of  a  nation 
or  the  agricultural  life  of  a  nation  which 
so  draws  away  the  strength  of  our  women 
that  it  poisons  and  weakens  motherhood. 
.When  we  make  these  assertions  of 
national  conscience,  we  do  not  make  them 
for  political  gain,  but  we  make  them  as  a 
principle  standing  above  party,  and  as  an 
American  principle  and  in  behalf  of  all 
America. 

It  is  impossible,  my  countrymen,  to 
have  an  America  such  as  we  would  have 
her,  until  there  are  no  failures  upon  her 
part  to  protect  American  childhood  and 
American  motherhood.  The  nation,  the 
several  states  and  all  their  communities 
and  all  citizens  of  America  must  unite  to 
prevent  the  growth  in  America  of  sore 
spots  where  the  equal  opportunity  of 


170  OTJE  COMMON  COUNTRY 

every  man,  woman  and  child  to  prove  his 
own  worth  might  be  taken  away  from  the 
human  individual. 

It  has  seemed  fitting  to  speak  of  this 
matter  of  social  betterment,  because  the 
greater  proportion  of  our  foreign-born 
Americans  have  preferred  our  cities  and 
the  lure  of  the  factory  to  the  call  of  the 
American  farm.  It  is  not  surprising. 
For  association's  sake,  many  of  them  have 
accepted  crowded  tenements  and  priva 
tions,  and  dwelt  amid  conditions  which  do 
not  permit  standing  out  in  the  fulness  of 
American  opportunity  or  measuring  to 
ideal  American  standards.  We  want 
them  to  know  the  best  America  and  give 
their  best  to  America,  and  in  clasping  the 
hand  of  American  conscience  and  free 
dom,  they  shall  be  impelled  to  give  Amer 
ica  both  head  and  heart  in  that  love  and 
loyalty  that  make  in  America  a  people 
distinct  from  all  others  in  surpassing  love 
of  country. 


CONSERVATION  AND 
DEVELOPMENT 

A  MESSAGE  FOR  THE  MOUNTAIN  WEST 


CHAPTER  X 

CONSERVATION  AND  DEVELOPMENT 

WHAT  a  wonderful  land  is  ours!  No 
one  has  ever  come  to  a  full  realization  of 
the  incomparableness  of  these  United 
States.  Nature  has  been  very  generous 
with  her  bounty  and  has  given  us,  in  the 
great  and  measureless  West  a  variegated 
and  picturesque  empire  as  beautiful  as 
Switzerland,  multiplied  many  times  over 
in  extent,  and  with  a  diversification  of 
industry  and  enterprise  which  Switzer 
land  could  not  develop  because  her  moun 
tains  are  well  nigh  barren  of  the  riches 
which  characterize  the  Rockies  and  the 
Coast  ranges. 

Some  day,  perhaps,  we  shall  come  to  an 

173 


174  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

appraisal  of  the  mountain  West  and  shall 
learn  something  about  its  contents  in  coal, 
copper,  iron,  gold  and  silver,  and  almost 
every  useful  mineral  deposit;  but  these 
are  not  all ;  because  the  mountain  "West  is 
rich  in  forests,  and  lakes  of  potash,  and 
vast  deposits  of  phosphates,  and  pos 
sesses  almost  measureless  areas  that  need 
only  water  to  make  them  blossom  like  a 
garden  of  Eden;  and  the  water  is  avail 
able  and  needs  only  the  genius  and  the 
courage  and  capacity  of  man  to  apply  it 
practically.  People  of  the  United  States 
contemplate  the  wonderful  West  from 
varying  view-points.  In  the  East,  the  ten 
dency  is  to  think  of  it  only  as  a  wonder 
land,  but  those  of  the  West,  who  have  seen 
it  from  the  intimate  view-point,  not  only 
find  unbounded  interest  in  its  possibili 
ties,  but  want  to  sense  the  pride  in  its  de 
velopment. 

We  have  come  to  an  era  when  further 
development,  attended  by  both  reclama- 


CONSERVATION  AND  DEVELOPMENT     175 

tion  and  conservation,  which  go  hand  in 
hand,  is  an  important  and  urgent  prob 
lem.  The  world  has  always  had  a  struggle 
to  provide  its  food.  In  the  practical 
development  of  the  United  States,  we 
must  ever  continue  the  enlargement  of  the 
available  food  supply.  Industrial  devel 
opment  in  the  cities  and  agricultural 
development  have  gone  more  or  less  in 
harmony,  because  the  one  is  absolutely 
essential  to  the  other.  Basically,  we  must 
be  sure  of  our  food  supply  first.  The 
development  of  the  Mississippi  Basin  was 
contemporaneous  with  the  development  of 
our  wonderful  American  cities,  and  the 
marvel  of  American  development  began 
immediately  after  the  Civil  War.  In  that 
conflict  we  made  certain  of  indissoluble 
union  and  put  an  end  to  all  doubts  in  the 
Federal  Constitution  and  then  turned  to 
expanded  settlement  and  development 
with  full  confidence  in  the  future. 
When  the  Union  armies  were  dispersed, 


176  DFR  COMMON  COUNTKY 

farms  in  the  West  were  made  available  to 
tens  of  thousands  of  the  defenders  of 
union  and  nationality,  the  central  plains 
were  awaiting,  almost  untouched,  and  out 
of  them  were  builded  a  dozen  splendid 
commonwealths.  There  is  a  partially 
analogous  situation  now.  There  is  an 
undeveloped  mountain  West  awaiting  the 
touch  of  genius  and  industry  and  there 
are  doubtless  thousands  of  service  men 
who  would  be  glad  to  turn  to  this  most 
desirable  development  very  much  as  serv 
ice  men  did  in  the  after  period  of  the 
Civil  War.  There  are,  of  course,  differ 
ences  in  condition,  and  the  mountain 
lands  are  not  so  ready  to  answer  man's 
call  as  were  the  prairies ;  but  with  a  help 
ful  policy  on  the  part  of  government  these 
lands  can  be  made  available  for  limitless 
contributions  to  the  sustenance  of  the 
Republic  and  the  compensation  of  those 
who  participate  in  developing  them. 
It  does  not  matter  whether  one  thinks 


CONSEKVATION  AND  DEVELOPMENT      177 

that  agriculture  is  the  inspiration  of  great 
cities  and  their  supporting  industrial 
areas,  or  whether  one  believes  that  agri 
culture  is  inspired  and  encouraged  by  the 
necessities  of  the  industrial  centers — they 
are,  in  fact,  interdependent,  and  the  for 
tune  of  one  is  inseparably  linked  with  the 
fortune  of  the  other.  One  thing  is  very 
certain,  that  intensive  industrial  develop 
ment  and  the  concentration  of  population 
in  cities  can  not  go  on  unless  we  have  an 
expansion  of  the  food  supply  upon  which 
they  depend  for  sustenance. 

It  is  fairly  contended  that  the  Amer 
ican  expansion  of  agriculture  has  had  a 
very  considerable  part  to  play  in  the 
development  o'f  the  great  industrial  cen 
ters  of  the  Old  World,  as  well  as  the  magic 
building  of  our  own.  Nottingham  and 
Manchester,  Dusseldorf  and  Berlin, 
Turin  and  Barcelona,  are  almost  as  much 
concerned  with  the  size  of  the  American 
food  surplus  as  are  our  own  great  cities. 


178  OUR  COMMON"  COUNTET 

"WHen  all  else  is  said,  the  fact  still 
remains  that  all  human  endeavor  must  be 
assured  of  an  ample  food  supply  else 
nothing  is  to  be  accomplished.  It  is  not  to 
be  said  that  we  have  outlived  the  world's 
capacity  to  produce  a  surplus  of  agricul 
tural  products,  but,  confessedly,  we  have 
got  out  of  a  properly-balanced  proportion 
in  the  development  of  our  agricultural 
supply.  Much  of  the  world,  of  course, 
remains  undeveloped.  It  is  said  that  the 
plains  of  Siberia,  or  the  productive  trop 
ics,  could  accommodate  the  world's  pop 
ulation  with  an  abundance  of  food,  but 
the  trouble  is  that  the  great,  virile,  pro 
gressive  peoples  of  the  world  are  not 
inclined  to  live  in  Siberia,  nor  are  they 
attracted  to  the  tropics.  As  a  matter  of 
simple  truth  they  lose  the  distinct  activity 
and  aggressiveness  when  taken  out  of  the 
zones  of  present-day  activity. 

It  is  perfectly  useless  to  talk  about 
transplanting  populations.  The  practical 


CONSEKVATION  AND  DEVELOPMENT     179 

tasks  of  life  are  to  make  old  Mother  Earth 
contribute  to  the  call  of  population  wher 
ever  it  may  be  located.  Thus  transporta 
tion  becomes  the  key  to  the  problem  of 
supply. 

The  inter-mountain'  and  Pacific  West 
is  endowed  with  riches  known  to  no  other 
region  of  the  world.  We  came  to  a  new 
appreciation  of  these  riches  during  the 
anxieties  of  the  World  War.  Necessity 
and  a  new  realization  of  self-dependence 
led  us  to  appraise  the  vast  deposits  of 
phosphates  and  the  lakes  of  potash  and 
the  mines  of  tungsten,  and  we  revived  the 
production  of  silver  and  added  to  the  out 
put  of  lead  and  copper,  because  the  war 
ring  world  had  no  other  such  dependable 
supply.  We  turned  to  the  abundance  of 
spruce  for  our  aeroplanes,  and  the  rare 
metals  for  alloys,  and  we  found  the  limit 
less  abundance  of  coal  and  used  it  to 
bunker  the  shipping  of  the  Pacific.  We 
increased  the  supply  of  the  long  staple 


180  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

cotton,  and  of  wool,  and  of  meats  and 
fruits.  Whatever  it  was  that  the  world 
greatly  needed  and  was  listed  in  our  own 
necessities,  we  discovered  a  goodly  and 
reassuring  share  of  it  in  the  vast  store 
house  of  the  almost  untouched  natural 
resources  of  the  great  West. 

During  the  war  we  made  a  good  deal  of 
progress  toward  development  of  these 
resources,  because  the  war  made  rapid 
and  intensive  effort  necessary.  But  with 
the  end  of  the  war  there  came  a  tendency 
to  slacken  development.  We  find  that 
some  things  were  started,  and  then  neg 
lected  or  forgotten.  With  correct  vision 
of  a  long  future,  contemplating  continued 
growth,  we  might  well  recognize  that  to 
this  inter-mountain  empire  we  must  turn 
for  the  same  service  as  that  rendered  by 
our  central  plains  when  they  were 
brought  into  productivity  following  the 
Civil  War. 

Our  vision,  then,  of  the  ultimate  devel- 


CONSERVATION1  AND  DEVELOPMENT      181 

opment  of  the  mountain  empire,  reveals  a 
great  region,  developed  uniformly,  with 
regard  to  all  its  variegated  possibilities. 
I  have  never  been  able  to  think  of  "  recla 
mation"  as  connoting  merely  the  con 
struction  of  ditches,  ancl  dams,  and  reser 
voirs,  to  put  water  on  dry  lands.  In  my 
view  this  has  been  only  a  phase — though 
a  most  important  phase — of  reclamation. 
I  have  believed  that  our  mountain  West 
is  one  day  to  be  one  of  the  richest  and 
most  completely  self-contained  economic 
areas  in  the  world.  My  vision  of  the  fu 
ture  pictures  it  as  a  wonderland  whose 
streams  are  harnessed  to  great  electrical 
units,  from  which  flows  the  power  to 
drive  railway  trains,  to  operate  indus 
tries,  to  carry  on  the  public  utilities  of 
cities,  to  smelt  the  metals,  and  to  energize 
the  activities  of  a  teeming  population. 

Not  long  ago,  a  great  journal  of  the 
South  published  an  interview  in  which  I 
attempted  to  suggest  my  hope  and  aspira- 


182  OUK  COMMON"  COUNTRY 

tion  for  the  new  South  as  a  developed, 
renewed  and  finished  community,  based 
on  the  proper  and  complete  utilization  of 
all  its  opportunities.  I  have  a  similar 
thought  about  the  possibilities  of  the 
mountain  West.  The  "  Great  American 
Desert"  disappeared  out  of  our  minds 
and  geographies  long  ago,  but  we  have 
retained  the  impression  that  our  Rocky 
Mountain  area  could  never  sustain  popu 
lations  and  industries  comparable  with 
those  of  the  central  valley,  or  the  Bast,  or 
the  South.  This  has  done  injustice  to  the 
Far  West.  The  richness  of  its  mountains, 
the  power  of  its  streams,  the  productivity 
of  its  valleys,  the  variety  of  its  climate 
and  opportunity,  the  possibility  of  its  dry 
areas,  all  suggest  its  destiny  to  become  the 
seat  of  an  ideal  civilization. 

I  undertake  to  say  that  there  is  no 
region  in  all  the  world  whose  resources 
could  be  developed  to  the  utmost,  with 
greater  benefit  to  the  world  as  a  whole, 


AND  DEVELOPMENT      183 

and  America  in  particular,  than  our 
mountain  West. 

It  requires  no  effort  of  imagination  to 
contemplate,  a  few  generations  hence,  our 
country  as  a  land  of  from  two  hundred  to 
three  hundred  million  people,  with  a  third 
of  them  happily  planted  in  this  area. 

We  have  come  to  the  time  when  the 
problem  of  our  Par  West  is  one  of  wisely 
directed  development,  rather  than  of  too 
much  conservation,  or,  perhaps,  to  put  the 
thought  more  accurately,  the  bringing 
about  of  a  degree  and  character  of  devel 
opment  which  will  constitute  the  wise 
form  of  conservation.  One  can  not  go  on 
saving  all  of  nature's  bounty  and  be  fair 
to  the  generations  of  to-day.  I  do  not 
mean  that  the  time  has  come  to  break 
recklessly  into  our  treasure  house  and 
squander  its  contents ;  but  I  do  decidedly 
mean  that  we  can  not  longer  delay  encour 
agement  and  assistance  to  rational,  nat 
ural  and  becoming  development.  We 


184  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

must  have  that  far-western  awakening 
which  shall  prove  an  effective  corrective 
of  the  concentration  of  population  and  the 
regional  specialization  of  industry  which 
has  been  repeatedly  called  to  our  atten 
tion  and  has  inclined  to  make  of  us  a  sec 
tional  America. 

Conservation,  it  must  always  be  kept 
in  mind,  does  not  consist  in  locking  up  the 
treasure  house  of  our  natural  resources. 
That  would  be  the  most  objectionable 
form  of  waste.  Conservation,  in  its  truest 
sense,  consists  in  the  judicious  use  of  the 
resources  which  are  ours.  The  conserva 
tion  policy  in  its  application  to  coal  is  not 
the  same  as  in  its  application  to  the  for 
est.  Coal,  once  it  is  taken  from  the  earth, 
can  never  be  replaced;  the  forests,  by 
proper  care  and  attention,  may  be  made 
to  yield  a  never-ending  return.  The  con 
servation  policy,  as  applied  to  rivers  and 
streams,  presents  still  another  phase, 
since  the  tree  which  we  leave  standing  in 


CONSERVATION  AND  DEVELOPMENT      185 

the  forest,  and  the  coal  we  leave  lying  in 
'the  mine,  remain  for  the  use  of  those  who 
may  come  later  on,  while  the  water  which 
flows  unused  to  the  sea  is  lost  beyond 
reclaim.  It  is  impossible,  by  the  utmost 
utilization  of  our  flowing  waters,  to  affect 
to  the  extent  of  a  single  drop,  the  auto 
matic  and  eternal  replenishment  at  the 
source.  Emphatically,  therefore,  in  the 
case  of  our  water-power  resources,  there 
is  not  even  a  seeming  paradox  in  saying 
that  the  more  we  use  the  more  do  we  save. 

The  only  problem  in  the  conservation  of 
waters  is  to  see  to  it  religiously  that  this 
great  inheritance  of  the  people  is  not 
monopolized  for  private  enrichment,  and 
of  this  there  can  be  little  danger  if  the 
state — and  the  nation,  when  it  has  the 
jurisdiction — shall  wisely  exercise  the 
powers  of  regulation  which  it  possesses  in 
respect  to  all  public  utilities. 

In  a  somewhat  different  manner,  the 
same  principle  will  apply  to  our  other 


186  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

natural  resources.  Emphasis  must  be 
placed  upon  their  use  rather  than  upon 
their  storage,  only  it  must  be  a  use  which, 
while  providing  for  the  present  needs, 
must  keep  an  ever  watchful  guard  upon 
their  preservation  for  the  need  of  genera 
tions  yet  to  come. 

Theodore  Roosevelt  had  a  clear  vision 
of  the  vast  possibilities  of  our  West.  In 
a  chapter  of  his  autobiography  devoted  to 
" Natural  Resources  of  the  Nation,"  he 
says:  "The  first  work  I  took  up  when  I 
became  president  was  the  work  of  recla 
mation."  In  his  view,  reclamation,  con 
servation  and  proper  utilization,  were  all 
parts  of  the  same  program.  That  must 
be  our  view  to-day.  "It  is  better  for  the 
government  to  help  a  poor  man  to  make  a 
living  for  his  family,  than  to  help  a  rich 
man  to  make  more  profit  for  his  com 
pany,"  declared  President  Eoosevelt. 
This  he  laid  down  as  one  of  the  principles 
upon  which  he  based  his  policy  toward 


CONSERVATION  AND  DEVELOPMENT      187 

public  land  areas.  The  principle  is  par 
ticularly  sound  to-day.  We  have  need  to 
make  these  areas  the  seat  of  millions  of 
new  American  families,  just  as  we  broke 
up  our  prairies  and  distributed  them 
among  strong,  enterprising,  vigorous  men 
who  developed  them  into  the  great  states 
of  the  Mississippi  Valley. 

We  must  make  our  mountain  West  a 
country  of  homes  for  people  who  need 
homes.  It  has  everything  that  they  will 
need.  It  can  provide  them  with  food,  with 
the  materials  for  industry,  with  lumber 
from  its  forests,  with  metals  and  minerals 
from  its  mines,  with  power  from  its 
streams,  and  waters  for  the  irrigation  of 
its  land.  And  the  work  must  be  so  done 
that  it  will  inure  most  to  the  advantage 
of  society  and  the  development  of  the 
independent,  self-sustaining  family  unit 
in  our  citizenship.  There  must  be  proper 
cooperation  and  direction  in  this  develop 
ment,  but  there  must  be  all  care  to 


188  OUK  COMMON  COUNTRY 

prevent  monopolization  of  resources  and 
opportunities. 

It  has  been  intimated  by  some  who  take, 
I  feel,  the  narrow  view,  that  the  industry 
of  the  East,  and  the  agriculture  of  the 
Middle  West  and  South,  will  not  view 
favorably  the  proposal  to  develop  new 
industry  and  new  agriculture  in  the 
mountain  country  to  compete  with  them. 
I  confess  to  very  little  sympathy  with  this 
attitude.  The  sons  of  New  York  and  New 
England  built  the  great  states  of  the  Ohio 
Valley;  and  the  sons  of  the  Ohio  Valley 
reared  the  splendid  commonwealths  be 
yond  the  Mississippi.  The  sons  of  every 
generation,  in  our  country,  have  been  the 
pioneers  of  some  new  land. 

Well  do  I  remember  the  covered- wagon 
days  of  the  early  seventies,  when  the  reso 
lute  sons  of  Ohio  took  up  the  westward 
journey.  They  had  little  more  of  valued 
possession  than  unalterable  determina 
tion  to  start  afresh  and  be  participants  in 


CONSERVATION  AND  DEVELOPMENT      189 

the  development  of  the  wonderful  land 
awaiting  their  coming.  They  wrought 
their  full  part  in  the  miracle  of  develop 
ment  and  gave  an  added  glow  to  the  west 
ward  march  of  the  star  of  empire.  Many 
who  went  were  those  who  had  found  new 
soul  of  citizenship  in  the  preservation  of 
union  and  nationality;  and  it  is  not 
impossible  that  thousands  of  those  who 
battled  to  r  aintain  American  rights  in 
the  world  will  be  eager  to  participate  in 
the  development  of  the  wonderland  we 
are  considering  to-day.  We  owe  to  them 
the  fullest  and  widest  opportunities,  and 
we  owe  it  to  them  to  give  of  government 
encouragement  and  aid  in  bringing  about 
the  development  so  much  to  be  desired. 
For  them  and  for  America  inestimable 
possibilities  are  in  store. 

To-day  we  are  informed  on  the  basis  of 
statistics  that  if  the  demands  of  a  rapidly- 
increasing  population  are  to  be  met,  new 
farms  must  be  opened  at  the  rate  of  one 


190  OTJE  COMMON  COUNTRY 

hundred  thousand  annually.  The  sad  fact 
is  that  only  half  that  number  are  being 
added  to  our  equipment  for  production 
every  year.  The  United  States  has 
changed,  from  a  basically  agricultural  to 
an  agricultural  and  industrial  nation. 
The  1920  statistics,  we  are  told,  show  that 
our  population  is  preponderantly  urban. 
More  food-stuffs  must  be  had ;  farms  now 
operating  will  not  supply  present  de 
mands.  The  one  solution  is  to  bring  more 
land  into  production. 

Reclamation,  as  I  have  viewed  it,  means 
a  good  deal  more  than  merely  putting 
water  on  arid  land.  There  are  regions  in 
which  it  means  draining  the  water  away 
from  swamps.  There  are  other  regions 
in  which  it  means  restoring  forests  that 
have  been  thoughtlessly  destroyed.  There 
are  still  others  in  which  it  means  frank 
recognition  of  the  fact  that  forests  have 
gone  forever,  that  stumps  must  be  re 
moved  and  the  land  utilized  for  agri 
culture. 


CONSERVATION  AND  DEVELOPMENT      191 

Nobody  wants  isolated  communities  of 
agricultural  producers  in  remote  re 
claimed  valleys,  to  produce  things  for 
which  there  is  no  available  market. 
There  have  been  some  instances  of  this 
sort.  But  with  better  transportation, 
with  encouragement  to  wide  and  varied 
development,  the  problem  of  markets  will 
solve  itself  rapidly  enough. 

In  dealing  with  our  public  lands  here 
after  we  are  not  to  be  too  profligate  in  the 
disposal  of  their  resources.  There  has 
been  profligacy  practised  in  the  past, 
though  I  take  it  that  some  of  it  was 
entirely  justifiable,  but  there  must  be  no 
further  doling  out  of  natural  resources  to 
favored  groups.  We  have  passed  the 
stage  when  there  must  be  exceptional  bid 
ding  for  pioneer  development.  It  was 
against  profligacy  that  Roosevelt  raised 
his  voice  and  exercised  the  veto  power. 
He  started  the  great  reclamation  move 
ment  and  it  came  none  too  soon.  Doubt- 


192  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY. 

less  he  had  in  mind  the  time  when  these 
resources  must  be  opened  for  free,  full 
and  independent  development.  Undoubt 
edly,  if  he  were  alive  to-day,  he  would  be 
a  cordial  sympathizer  with  the  same  pol 
icy  of  development  combined  with  a 
rational  policy  of  conservation  of  re 
sources  for  Americans  yet  to  come,  all  of 
which  is  consonant  with  square  dealing 
with  all  Americans  engaged  in  the  fulfill 
ment  of  our  obligations  of  to-day. 

It  is  all  a  forward-looking  program 
with  an  ever  mindfulness  of  the  passing 
day.  The  great  change  in  our  whole  eco 
nomic  situation,  and  the  realization  that 
our  opportunities  of  providing  for 
increased  population  have  a  definite 
limit,  must  enforce  this  view.  Roosevelt 
performed  a  great  service  to  the  nation, 
and  what  he  did  for  his  time  we  must 
carry  forward  to  the  future.  I  would  not 
have  the  West  return  to  the  era  of  spec 
ulative  operations,  tending  to  monopolies. 


CONSERVATION  AND  DEVELOPMENT     193 

I  want  to  see,  as  he  did,  a  development  of 
our  public  land  country  which  will  insure 
the  utmost  equality  of  privilege  and 
opportunity. 

In  some  places  private  capital,  in  others 
public  funds  can  best  do  the  work  that  is 
required.  I  have  no  particular  prefer 
ence  for  either  program,  except  that  I 
would  like  to  see  in  each  instance  the 
policy  that  will  on  the  whole  best  serve  the 
national  purpose.  I  would  not  hesitate  to 
employ  federal  credit  for  certain  types  of 
reclamation  work,  and  on  the  other  side  I 
would  not  stand  in  the  way  of  having  that 
work  done  by  private  enterprise,  if  this 
seemed  best. 

Western  states  desirous  of  cooperating 
with  the  federal  government  in  reclama 
tion  contemplate  enactment  of  uniform 
laws  to  aid  in  financing  reclamation  work 
in  conjunction  with  the  federal  plan  of 
impounding  waters.  Lack  of  unified 
effort  and  policy  has  been  a  misfortune  in 


194:  OUR  COMMON"  COUNTRY 

the  past,  and  the  time  has  come  for  a  fixed 
and  comprehensive  program. 

In  broadest  contemplation,  we  must 
keep  in  mind  the  thing  which  inspires  all 
of  our  activities.  I  have  an  abiding  con 
viction  that  American  nationality  has 
been  the  inspiration  from  the  beginning. 
We  found  that  inspiration  renewed  and 
magnified  when  we  made  sure  of  indissol 
uble  union  and  started  afresh  for  the 
supreme  American  fulfillment.  The 
impelling  thought  now  is  to  go  on  as 
Americans,  free  and  independent  and 
self-reliant,  to  make  the  United  States  a 
great  Republic,  unafraid  and  confident  of 
its  future  and  rejoicing  in  American 
accomplishment. 


SOCIAL  JUSTICE 

A  MESSAGE  FOB  "WOMEN 


CHAPTER  XI 

SOCIAL  JUSTICE 

WHEN  we  all  acknowledge  that  the  time 
and  the  conditions  of  the  world  call  for 
fuller  recognition  of  human  rights,  the 
protection  of  the  life  of  human  beings  and 
the  conservation  of  our  human  resources, 
it  becomes  the  duty  of  the  women  of 
America,  and  it  becomes  my  duty,  to  deal 
with  these  matters  of  social  justice  upon 
a  high  plane  of  an  idealism  which  is  not 
too  proud  to  work.  More,  it  is  our  duty 
to  consider  without  hypocrisy  or  high- 
sounding  phrases  a  program  of  action. 
And  it  is  my  duty  to  address  not  only  you 
who  are  women,  now  entering  by  justice, 
by  the  principles  of  sound  democracy,  and 
197 


198  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

by  the  wisdom  of  a  progressive  civiliza 
tion,  into  citizenship,  but  also  to  address 
every  American  who  is  interested  in  our 
common  welfare. 

I  pledge  myself  to  support  with  all  that 
is  in  me  whatever  practical  policy  of 
social  justice  can  be  brought  forward  by 
the  combined  wisdom  of  all  Americans. 
Nothing  can  concern  America,  and  noth 
ing  can  concern  me  as  an  American,  more 
deeply  than  the  health,  the  happiness  and 
the  enlightenment  of  every  fellow- 
American. 

I  believe  that  none  of  us  can  be  safe  and 
happy  or  reach  our  finest  growth  until  we 
have  done  our  utmost  to  see  that  all 
Americans  are  safe.  I  believe  that,  if  a 
wise  God  notes  a  sparrow's  fall,  no  life 
can  be  so  obscure  and  humble  that  it  shall 
become  of  no  consequence  to  America. 

Only  by  reason  of  the  depth  and  perma 
nence  of  such  belief  can  be  founded  our 
grave  duty  and  our  solemn  obligation  to 


SOCIAL  JUSTICE  199 

consider  the  subject  of  social  justice  with 
out  mere  emotion,  without  mere  inspira 
tional  words,  without  mere  entrancing 
phrases,  without  mere  slogans,  but  with 
that  wisdom  which  is  needed  when  the 
desire  of  our  hearts'  and  heads  must  be 
translated  into  terms  of  living  action  and 
actual  achievement. 

The  social  justice  that  I  conceive  is  not 
paternalism.  It  would  be  easy  to  make  it 
so,  and  dangerous  indeed  to  the  best  spirit 
that  Americans  can  have — the  spirit  of 
expressing  by  the  individual  free  will 
one's  own  merits,  capacity  and  worth. 
We  do  not  want  government  to  suppress 
that  expression  of  free  will,  even  by 
benevolence,  but  we  do  mean  to  preserve 
in  America  an  equal  opportunity  and  a 
preparedness  for  self-expression  therein, 
even  though  we  use  the  government 
to  do  it. 

Social  justice,  on  the  other  hand,  is  not 
a  mere  sentiment.  To  my  mind  a  social 


200  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

justice  policy  in  government  can  not  and 
should  not  be  confined  to  a  program  for 
the  flow  of  benefits  from  some  uncertain 
and  magic  source  at  the  seat  of  govern 
ment.  I  could  not  even  consider  a  policy; 
of  social  justice  which  is  conceived,  as  so 
many  visionaries  conceive  it,  as  a  right  of 
mankind.  I  will  only  consider  it  as  an 
obligation  of  mankind. 

I  refuse  to  subscribe  to  the  doctrine 
which  has  gone  so  far  to  delude  the  world 
that  even  citizenship  is  based  upon 
rights.  I  believe,  and  have  repeatedlyj 
said,  that  citizenship  is  based  upon 
obligation. 

I  will  not  even  approach  the  considera 
tion  of  a  policy  of  social  justice  unless  iH 
is  founded  on  the  stalwart  American  doc 
trine  of  the  duties  of  every  one  of  us  to  all' 
of  us.  The  first  measure  of  social  justice 
to  which  America  must  always  devote  her 
self  is  the  duty  of  citizenship  to  vote  witE 
conscience,  to  preserve  laws,  and  to: 


SOCIAL   JUSTICE  201 

demand  their  enforcement.  It  is  the  obli 
gation  of  all  true  Americans  to  live  clean 
lives  and  to  engage  with  head  and  hand  in 
honest,  useful  production  and  toil. 

The  best  social  welfare  worker  in  the 
world  is  the  man  or  woman  who  lives 
righteously  and  does  the  task  well  which 
he  or  she  is  most  capable  of  doing,  thereby 
adding  to  the  sum  total  of  human 
accomplishment. 

The  task  before  us — to  build  highi 
standards  of  social  justice  in  America — 
is  sometimes  badly  defined,  and  I  think 
we  all  regret  that  the  methods  to  be  pur 
sued  have  been  allowed  to  fly  without  def 
inite  understanding  of  their  landing 
places.  Social  justice,  like  the  phrase, 
"  self  -determination  of  free  people,"  is  a 
slogan  which  sounds  so  well  that  the 
world  is  beguiled  away  from  deciding 
what  wise  things  may  be  really  done 
about  it. 

For  my  part,  I  have  no  taste  and  no 


202  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

conscience  which  will  allow  me  to  talk  to 
Americans  with  phrases  which  I  myself 
can  not  define  and  with  a  program 
which  is  not  practical  and  capable  of 
fulfillment. 

Let  us  be  practical  in  our  idealism.  Let 
us  plan  the  things  we  can  wisely  do,  and 
then  do  them. 

I  believe  that  there  is  no  step  more 
practical,  no  step  which  will  mean  more  to 
the  growth  of  America's  social  welfare; 
no  step  which  will  guarantee  better  Amer 
ica 's  social  justice,  than  one  which  I  now 
propose  to  you. 

There  can  be  no  more  efficient  way  of 
advancing  a  humanitarian  program  than 
by  adapting  the  machinery  of  our  federal 
government  to  the  purposes  we  desire  to 
attain.  While  others  may  have  their  eyes 
fixed  on  some  particular  piece  of  legisla-r 
tion,  or  some  particular  policy  of  social 
justice  which  calls  for  the  sympathetic 


SOCIAL   JUSTICE  203 

interest  of  us  all,  I  say,  without  hesita 
tion,  that  our  primary  consideration  must 
be  the  machinery  of  administration,  and 
when  the  time  comes  for  us  to  recognize 
our  administrative  government  in  Wash 
ington,  we  must  all  stand  together  for  the 
creation  of  a  department  of  public 
welfare. 

It  is  almost  useless  for  us  to  go  on 
expending  our  energies  in  advancing 
humanitarian  policies  which  we  wish  put 
into  effect,  and  it  is  useless  for  us  to  hope 
for  the  effective  administration  of  hu 
manitarian  policies  already  undertaken 
by  the  federal  government,  until  we  have 
prepared  to  create  an  administrative  cen 
ter  for  the  application  of  our  program. 

At  the  present  time  we  find  social  wel 
fare  bureaus  and  social  welfare  undertak 
ings  scattered  hopelessly  through  the  de 
partments,  sometimes  the  one  overlapping 
the  work  of  the  other,  and  sometimes, 
indeed,  engaging  in  bickerings  between 


204  OUK  COMMON  COUNTRY 

themselves.  The  picture  is  one  of  ineffi 
ciency  and  of  wasted  funds. 

Let  us  not  only  have  social  justice  and 
social  welfare  developed  to  the  fullest 
extent  which  a  wise  citizenship  will  ap 
prove,  but  let  us  have  also  the  means  with 
which  to  make  social  justice  and  social 
welfare  real  and  functioning,  rather  than 
visionary  and  inefficient. 

I  have  no  doubt  that  there  will  be  some 
who  will  find  in  this  proposal  cause  for 
calling  me  an  extremist,  but  when  we  have 
a  task  to  do,  which  has  been  dictated  by 
our  conscience  and  approved  by  our  wis 
dom,  let  us  straightway  find  the  way  to  do 
it.  I  do  not  say  this  without  a  word  of 
caution.  I  recognize  certain  dangers 
which  are  always  presented  when  govern 
ment  undertakes  large  and  detailed  tasks. 
I  have  said  already  that  we  must  avoid 
paternalism,  and  that  we  must  avoid  it 
because  a  paternalistic  social  welfare 
program  would  smother  some  of  the  lib- 


SOCIAL   JUSTICE  205 

erties,  some  of  the  dignity,  and  some  of 
the  freedom  for  self-expression  of  our 
individuals. 

In  creating  federal  departments  for  the 
administration  of  social  justice  and  social 
welfare,  we  must  avoid  the  fearful  results 
of  bureaucracy.  I  am  inclined  to  think 
that  as  between  a  bureaucracy  of  a  mili 
tary  power  which  paid  little  attention  to 
the  regulating  of  domestic  affairs,  and  a 
bureaucracy  of  social  rules  and  regula 
tions,  the  latter  would  oppress  the  soul  of 
a  country  more.  We  do  not  want,  and  we 
will  not  have,  either  in  America.  Un 
doubtedly  the  great  blessings  of  our  Con 
stitution,  appearing,  indeed,  as  if  our 
Constitution  had  been  written  by  the  hand 
of  Providence,  are  the  checks  which  it 
places  upon  the  development  in  a  national 
center  of  a  great  bureaucratic  paternal 
ism.  We  are  momentarily  irritated  at 
times  when  we  desire  to  enact  measures, 
which  appear  to  be  dedicated  wholly  to 


206  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

the  welfare  of  mankind,  when  we  find 
that  constitutional  limitations  prevent 
their  legality.  But  we  have  been  saved 
through  these  many  years;  and  will  be 
saved  throughout  America's  continued 
progress  from  the  growth  of  too  much 
centralism,  too  much  paternalism,  too 
much  bureaucracy,  and  too  much  in 
fringement  of  the  individual's  right  to 
construct  his  own  life  within  our  Amer 
ican  standards  of  reason  and  justice. 

I  would  like  to  point  out  to  all  America 
that  there  is  grave  danger  at  hand  when 
centralized  expression  begins  to  take  from 
local  communities  all  the  burdens  of  social 
conscience.  The  best  that  humanity 
knows  comes  up  from  the  individual  man 
and  woman  through  the  sacred  institu 
tions  of  the  family  and  the  home,  and, 
perhaps,  finds  its  most  effective  applica 
tion  in  the  community  where  life  is  per 
sonal,  and  where  there  is  not  an  attempt 
to  cut  men  and  women  to  a  given  pattern 


SOCIAL   JUSTICE  207 

and  treat  mankind  as  a  wholesale  com 
modity. 

I  like  to  tMnk  of  an  America  whose 
spirit  flows  up  from  the  bottom  and  is  not 
handed  down  from  the  top.  I  like  to 
think  that  the  virtue 'of  the  family  is  the 
combined  virtue  of  its  members,  and  that 
the  virtue  of  a  community  is  the  combined 
standards  of  virtues  of  its  citizens.  I  like 
to  think  of  a  nation  whose  virtue  is  the 
combined  virtue  of  its  communities.  For 
such  is  America ;  such  may  she  always  be! 

So  long  as  her  expression  flows  up  from 
the  people,  and  not  down  from  a  central 
ized  autocracy,  however  that  autocracy 
may  label  itself,  America  will  live  in  all 
her  virile  strength.  When  we  create  in 
Washington  a  strong  federal  government 
and  undertake,  even  for  the  most  humani 
tarian  purposes,  new  federal  burdens,  let 
us  with  all  reverence  pray  that  we  shall 
never  by  this  means  put  to  sleep  the  spirit, 
the  sense  of  duty,  and  the  activities  of  the 


208  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

communities  and  neighborhoods  of  the 
United  States.  I  raise  these  cautions,  not 
because  I  am  doubtful  of  the  wisdom  of 
the  federal  government  doing  all  that  it 
can  to  conserve  the  human  resources  of 
the  United  States,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
because  I  believe  we  must  move  forward 
upon  a  sure  footing,  without  undertaking 
impractical  or  unwise  programs  which 
lead  to  disillusionment,  and  in  the  end 
retard,  rather  than  accelerate,  the  expres 
sion  of  American  conscience  and  its  appli 
cation  to  the  welfare  of  the  people. 

"With  these  cautions,  however,  guiding 
us  as  we  go  forward  to  create,  if  possible, 
the  right  kind  of  federal  machinery  for 
social  justice,  we  will  feel  more  confidence 
in  creating  a  federal  department  of  public 
welfare.  When  making  the  proposal  for 
a  department  of  public  welfare  to  Amer 
ica,  I  am  aware  that  I  have  made  a  step 
in  advance  of  any  platform.  I  have 
chosen  to  speak  to  you  on  the  practical 


SOCIAL   JUSTICE  209 

question — the  question  of  how  to  do  the 
tasks  we  must  do,  the  things  American 
conscience  is  calling  to  have  done. 

We  all  know  that  we  face  tasks  of  social 
justice,  which  we  must  undertake  with 
despatch  and  efficiency.  Who  can  sug 
gest  one  of  these  tasks  which  can  super 
sede  in  our  hearts,  or  in  the  rank  which 
foresight  and  wisdom  will  give,  that  of  the 
protection  of  our  maternity? 

The  protection  of  the  motherhood  of 
America  can  not  be  accomplished  until  the 
state  and  the  nation  have  enacted  and,  by 
their  example,  have  enforced  customs, 
which  protect  womanhood  itself.  I  know 
full  well  that  there  are  women  who  insist 
that  women  shall  be  treated  upon  the  same 
basis  that  men  are  treated.  They  would 
have  a  right  to  take  this  position  in  their 
own  behalf,  but  I  insist,  and  all  true 
Americans  must  insist,  that  no  woman 
speaks  for  herself  alone.  She  is  the  pos 
sessor  of  our  future,  and  though  she  be- 


210  OUE  COMMON  COUNTRY 

comes  engaged  in  the  task  and  services  of 
civilization,  we  must  preserve  to  her  the 
right  of  wholesome  maternity. 

We  no  longer  are  speaking  of  a  small 
group.  Twelve  million  women  in  the 
United  States,  forty  per  cent,  of  them  be 
tween  fifteen  and  twenty  years  of  age,  are 
engaged  in  paid  occupations  or  profes 
sions.  Such  an  army  of  potential  mater 
nity  demands  from  America  careful  and 
adequate  protection  in  the  conditions 
which  surround  their  labors.  For  such  an 
army  there  must  be  an  increasing  enlight 
enment  in  industry  and  business  which 
will  tend  to  break  down  distinctions  of  sex 
in  matters  of  remuneration,  and  establish 
equal  pay  for  equal  work.  The  needs  of 
such  an  army,  engaging  in  the  tasks  of 
America,  probably  can  not  be  understood 
by  men  alone.  In  the  administration  of 
federal  and  state  laws,  and  in  the  educa 
tional  services  which  will  assist  industry 
and  the  public,  and  the  women  themselves, 


SOCIAL   JUSTICE  211 

to  understand  the  needs  of  women,  we  will 
require  the  services  of  the  most  capable 
women  we  can  get  upon  federal  and  state 
boards  of  employment,  labor  adjustment 
and,  indeed,  wherever  the  welfare  of  ma 
ternity  and  the  welfare  of  American 
childhood,  directly  or  remotely,  are 
involved. 

There  is  a  growing  and  a  probably  wise 
sentiment  in  America  in  favor  of  an  eight- 
hour  day  everywhere  for  women.  The 
federal  government  has  set  the  example  in 
a  policy  which  looks  toward  the  protection 
of  our  best  human  resources.  Justice  and 
American  standards  demand  that  women 
who  are  employed  should  be  paid  a  living 
wage,  and  it  is  entirely  unfair  to  the  state 
which  fulfills  its  obligations  to  humanity 
in  any  piece  of  humanitarian  legislation 
affecting  industry,  if  other  states,  by  fail 
ing  to  perform  their  obligation,  gain  a 
temporary  advantage  in  costs  of  produc 
tion.  I  believe  that  one  of  the  principal 


212  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

functions  of  the  department  of  public  wel 
fare  will  be  to  enlighten  and  educate  local 
action,  so  that  we  may  have  throughout 
our  states  an  increasing  sense  of  obliga 
tion  to  meet  a  national  standard  of  social 
justice. 

I  desire  particularly  to  emphasize  the 
need  of  safeguarding  the  prosperity  of 
the  American  farmer,  so  that  he  may  com 
pete  with  industry  in  obtaining  labor.  I 
am  hearing  constantly  voices  raised  in  be 
half  of  the  women  in  industry.  I  desire  to 
raise  mine  now  in  behalf  of  the  women  on 
the  farms  of  the  United  States,  who  in  the 
labor  shortage  of  this  year  have  gone  into 
the  fields — young  girls  and  old  women — 
to  give  a  service  which,  if  it  had  not  been 
given,  would  have  deprived  us  this  year 
of  an  adequate  food  supply.  There  must 
be  labor,  normal  labor,  available  to  farm 
as  well  as  factory. 

One  of  the  important  organizations 
under  a  department  of  public  welfare 


SOCIAL   JUSTICE  213 

might  well  be  the  children's  bureau  which 
now  exists,  but  whose  work,  already 
proved  so  useful,  must  be  extended  and 
made  still  more  capable  of  educating  and 
assisting  in  pre-natal  care  and  early  in 
fancy.  It  is  for  us  ft  grim  jest,  indeed, 
that  the  federal  government  is  spending 
twice  as  much  money  for  the  suppression 
of  hog  cholera  as  it  spends  for  its  entire 
program  for  the  welfare  of  the  American 
child. 

We  are  not  doing,  however,  enough  for 
the  future  citizens  of  America  if  we  allow 
women  to  injure,  by  industry  or  igno 
rance,  their  maternity,  or  if  we  allow  in 
fancy  itself  to  go  unprotected  from  dis 
ease  and  unintelligence.  Among  sixteen 
important  countries  of  the  world,  thirteen 
show  a  lower  death  rate  for  mothers  than 
the  United  States,  and  six  show  a  lower 
death  rate  for  very  young  children. 
Nearly  a  quarter  of  a  million  babies — 
practically  a  number  equal  to  the  entire 


214  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

casualty  list  of  our  men  in  the  great  war — 
die  every  year. 

It  will  not  be  the  America  we  love  which 
will  neglect  the  American  mother  and  the 
American  child.  The  program  to  prevent 
abuses  of  child  labor,  already  greatly  ad 
vanced,  represents  the  progress  of  legis 
lation  toward  wise  prevention,  which  will 
receive  the  sanction  of  constitutional  law. 
When  we  first  legislated  to  remedy  the 
abuses  of  child  labor,  approximately  one 
out  of  five  children  between  the  ages  of 
ten  and  fifteen  in  the  United  States  was  a 
wage-earner.  I  do  not  say  that  among 
them  there  were  not  many  exceptions, 
whose  labors  were  of  such  a  nature  as  to 
fit  them  to  become  better  men  and  women, 
but  I  do  say  that  in  the  mass,  their  labor 
represented  the  theft  of  their  right  to 
childhood,  to  happiness,  to  health,  and  of 
their  right  to  prepare  to  embrace  our 
equal  opportunity,  to  realize  for  America 
their  capacity  and  worth  as  future  citi- 


SOCIAL   JUSTICE  215 

zens.  This  condition  we  could  not  neglect, 
and  we  can  not  neglect  the  problems  of 
child  labor  in  this  country.  Even  if  it 
were  not  upon  humanitarian  grounds,  I 
point  out  to  you  that  the  protection  of 
American  maternity  apd  childhood  repre 
sents  economic  thrift.  Indeed,  it  repre 
sents  the  saving  of  our  blood,  our  pos 
terity,  and  the  future  strength  of  our 
nation. 

Next  to  maternity  and  childhood,  I 
believe  that  our  attention  must  be  cen 
tered  upon  our  national  health.  Between 
twenty-five  and  thirty-three  and  one- 
third  per  cent,  of  the  young  men  exam 
ined  in  our  first  draft  for  war  were  found 
to  be  defective,  or  physically  unfit.  Ex 
aminations  of  children  in  the  public 
schools  of  America  disclose  that  fifty  per 
cent,  of  them  are  suffering  from  physical 
delinquencies,  most  of  which  proper  at 
tention  would  remedy  before  maturity.  I 
believe,  therefore,  that  we  must  undertake 


216  OUK  COMMON  COUNTRY 

with  great  seriousness  the  problem  of  our 
national  health.  I  am  alert  to  the  danger 
of  too  much  oppressive  bureaucracy  in 
any  great  federal  health  bureau,  but  I 
want  to  see  the  various  agencies  grouped 
together  in  a  department  of  public  wel 
fare.  I  want  to  see  their  principal  func 
tion,  that  of  stimulating,  by  research  and 
education,  the  communities  and  local  gov 
ernments  of  the  United  States  to  the  most 
active  and  sufficient  campaign  against 
low  standards  of  physical  well-being.  We 
must  attack,  first,  a  low  standard  of 
health  among  children;  secondly,  the  in 
vasion  of  diseases  which  attend  a  low 
standard  of  morals ;  and  thirdly,  the  inva 
sion  of  epidemics,  and  the  neglect  of  the 
chronic  diseases  of  maturity,  many  of 
which  are  due  to  a  failure  on  the  part  of 
individuals  to  adjust  their  living  and  hab 
its  to  an  artificial  civilization. 

It  is  not  possible  to  discuss  in  detail  all 
of  the  measures  of  social  justice  which 


SOCIAE  JTJSTICB  217 

sooner  or  later  the  people  of  this  country 
will  probably  have  to  consider  and  adopt 
and  put  into  action,  or  reject  as  imprac 
ticable.  But  I  do  conceive  an  obligation 
of  government,  to  devote  grave  attention 
to  another  group  of  problems  which  are 
all  humanitarian,  and  which  are  of  vital 
importance  to  our  future. 

I  have  spoken  of  my  attitude  toward 
industrial  peace.  I  have  stated  my  full 
belief  in  labor  unionism  and  in  the  prac 
tise  of  collective  bargaining,  and  I  have 
also  tried  to  emphasize  a  belief,  which  I 
feel  deeply,  that  industrial  peace,  though 
it  may  be  attained  by  adjustment  and  con 
ciliation,  can  never  stand  upon  its  firmest 
foundation  until  a  higher  sense  of  loyalty 
to  the  task  permeates  the  workers,  and  a 
higher  sense  of  humanitarian  brother 
hood  permeates  the  employers  of  Amer 
ica.  I  do  not  think  of  this  reawakening  of 
a  higher  conscience  upon  both  sides  in 
terms  of  generalities,  and  I  regard  it  as 


218  OTJB  COMMON  COUNTED 

being  one  of  the  humane  functions  of 
which  our  government  is  capable  to  satur 
ate  the  industrial  life  of  our  country  with 
a  spirit  which  will  tend  to  reunite  parties 
of  discord. 

We  are  often  presented  with  conditions 
which  result  in  industrial  controversy, 
but  which  may  not  be  charged  to  either 
side.  I  speak  specifically  of  two  exam 
ples:  The  first  involves  the  unrest,  the 
discontent,  which  arises  from  unsteady 
employment.  It  is  not  a  condition  to  be 
remedied  alone  by  federal  employment 
bureaus  filling  in  the  gaps  of  unemploy 
ment,  but  rests  largely  upon  conditions  of 
industry  which  make  for  seasonal  produc 
tion  and  periodic  closing  and  opening  of 
industrial  plants  and  occupations.  I  am 
enough  of  an  optimist  to  believe  that  gov 
ernment  can  assist  in  the  abolition  of  this 
most  unfortunate  condition.  I  am  even 
enough  of  an  optimist  to  believe  that  the 
government  can  take  a  large  part  in  a  sec- 


SOCIAL   JUSTICE  219 

ond  and,  perhaps,  even  more  important 
campaign.  I  believe  that  many  of  our 
workers  are  engaged  in  tasks  which  have 
been  so  specialized  that  the  men  and 
women  themselves  have  become  almost 
pieces  of  mechanism.  'This  has  produced 
a  condition  in  which  many  of  our  workers 
find  no  self-expression.  In  such  a  condi 
tion,  men  and  women  are  drained  dry  of 
the  impulse  to  create. 

Without  any  false  notions  as  to  the  pos 
sibilities  of  turning  back  progress  so  that 
the  day  of  less  specialization  may  return, 
I  none  the  less  believe  that  it  is  our  duty 
as  a  whole  people  to  see  if  we  can  not  make 
every  job  in  the  country  a  small  business 
of  its  own.  No  matter  how  simple  the  job. 
be  sure  that  it  plays  a  dignified  and  an 
essential  part  in  our  welfare.  The  man 
who  does  it  must  learn  to  realize  it ;  and 
more  than  that,  he  and  his  employer  must 
combine  to  make  every  job,  no  matter 
what  it  is,  a  friend  of  the  man  who  does 


220  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

it — a  friend  because  the  man  who  does  the 
work  has  learned  an  interest  in  it,  so  that 
just  as  if  it  were  his  particular  individual 
business  he  may  understand  how  he  may 
improve  that  job,  so  that  he  may  under 
stand  its  unit  costs,  its  bookkeeping,  its 
purposes,  its  relation  to  other  jobs,  and  to 
the  whole  fabric  of  our  national  produc 
tion,  and  so  that  the  job  may  become,  as 
much  as  possible,  day  by  day,  an  expres 
sion  of  human  being. 

This  is  our  program  of  social  justice.  I 
have  not  attempted  to  make  it  .complete ; 
who  can  do  so  ?  This  is  my  program  for  a 
department  which  as  an  effective  govern 
ment  agency  will  further  social  justice.  I 
have  not  attempted  to  describe  it  in  detail. 
No  one  can  describe  it  in  detail  before  it 
becomes  a  working  organization;  but  I 
believe  that  I  have  voiced  the  conscience 
and  the  common  sense  of  America  when  I 
say  that  we  must  pay  new  attention  to  the 
conservation  of  our  human  resources. 


SOCIAL  JUSTICE  221 

I  must  not  fail  to  speak  of  one  of  the 
measures  of  social  justice  and  social  wel 
fare  not  often  catalogued  in  this  manner, 
but  perhaps  more  important  than  any  we 
have  considered.  I  refer  to  the  enforce 
ment  of  law.  It  will  not  be  my  business  to 
decide  what  laws  shall  be.  It  will  be  legit 
imate  for  me  to  invoke  public  opinion  for 
their  enactment,  but  such  a  call  to  public 
opinion  must  be  based  more  upon  the  duty 
of  the  executive  of  the  nation  to  give 
facts  to  the  people  than  upon  his  desire  to 
give  opinion,  theory  and  propaganda. 
The  enforcement  of  the  law  is  an  execu 
tive  responsibility  and  must  be  under 
taken  by  the  executive  without  regard  for 
his  personal  approval  or  disapproval  of 
the  law,  which  it  has  been  the  people's  will 
to  enact.  Whatever  your  achievement 
may  be  in  the  world,  your  concern,  as 
mine,  is  principally  with  the  American 
home  and  you,  with  me,  will  realize  that 
we  must  have  throughout  the  land  a 


222  OTJK  COMMON  COUNTRY 

respect  for  law-abiding  principles.  We 
must  all  condemn  without  qualification 
the  failure  of  enforcement  of  prohibition, 
just  as  we  must  all  condemn  the  failure  of 
established  authority  to  prevent  outrages 
of  violence,  such  as  lynching. 

I  appeal  to  you  as  to  enforcement  of 
law  because  I  regard  the  enforcement  of 
law  as  a  fundamental  principle  of  the 
American  conscience,  and  if  I  am  to  dis 
tinguish  between  men  and  women,  I  will 
attribute  to  the  women  of  America  the 
major  part  in  the  preservation  of  that 
conscience. 


THE  VALUE  OF  PLAY 

A  MESSAGE  FOB  YOUTH 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  VALUE  OF  PLAY 

FROM  time  immemorial  the  nations  and 
races  which  have  been  fit  to  assume  lead 
ership  in  the  world  were  those  whose  peo 
ple  knew  how  to  excel  in  athletic  sports 
and  had  not  forgotten  how  to  play — and 
how  to  play  hard.  The  great  civilizations 
— those  which  have  left  a  profound  effect 
upon  the  development  of  mankind,  those 
which  have  contributed  not  only  to  explo 
ration,  to  the  extension  of  orderly  govern 
ment,  to  supremacy  of  arms  but  even  in 
greater  measure  to  the  thought  and  phi 
losophy  of  the  world  have  been  the  nations 
that  developed  athletic  sports — who  have 
known  how  to  play.  There  was  Greece, 
225 


226  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

famous  for  the  original  Olympic  games; 
there  was  Kome,  that  for  centuries  kept 
alive  the  customs  of  athletic  competition 
in  her  arenas ;  there  is  the  United  King 
dom,  great  extender  of  enlightenment  to 
far  corners  of  the  earth.  Japan,  leader  in 
the  Orient,  built  her  power  and  her  alert 
ness  by  a  tradition  of  training  in  compet 
itive  games  such  as  wrestling  and  sword 
play.  And,  thank  God,  there  is  America, 
the  stronghold  of  liberty  and  the  square 
deal,  which  still  can  take  the  honors  in  the 
world's  competitions  in  healthy  sports. 

I  believe  that  play,  not  mere  entertain 
ment,  not  reading  comic  strips  or  "  pass 
ing  the  time,"  as  some  say,  but  real  play, 
play  that  gives  a  man  or  woman  a  chance 
to  express  himself  or  herself  as  an  indi 
vidual,  is  one  of  the  finest  assets  in  our 
national  life  and  one  of  the  best  builders 
of  character. 

I  believe  there  are  reasons  behind  the 
fact  that  the  nations  that  have  led  the 


THE  VALUE  OF  PLAY  227 

world  have  fostered  athletic  games  and 
know  how  to  play,  how  to  express  their 
spirit  through  play,  how  to  develop  char 
acter  through  competition  and  how  to  let 
off  turbulence  of  the  spirit  and  wasting 
restlessness  and  discontent  of  mind  and 
poisons  of  the  body  through  good  hard 
play. 

Nothing  is  more  important  to  America 
than  citizenship ;  there  is  more  assurance 
of  our  future  in  the  individual  character 
of  our  citizens  than  in  any  proposal  I,  and 
all  the  wise  advisers  I  can  gather,  can  ever 
put  into  effect  in  Washington. 

We  may  as  well  go  back  to  that  sound 
idea  right  now.  America  will  never  rise 
higher  than  the  merit  and  worth  of  her 
combined  individual  citizens.  No  nation 
ever  has,  none  ever  will. 

I  regard  play  as  having  no  small  part 
in  the  building  of  citizenship.  I  do  not 
mean  play  for  children,  I  mean  play  for 
everybody.  The  war  left  us  nervous  and 


228  OUB  COMMON  COUNTRY 

irritable.  rA.s  time  goes  on  we  are  going 
to  see  that  an  industrial  age  will  inevit 
ably  concentrate  men  in  cities.  The  busi 
ness  executive,  unless  he  looks  out,  will  die 
at  his  desk — not  his  body  perhaps  but  his 
spirit,  and  the  worker,  particularly  the 
man  behind  the  machine  who  makes  only 
a  few  motions  over  and  over  again  each 
day,  will  have  no  means  of  self-expression 
and  his  spirit  will  die  too. 

There  are  other  reliefs  that  we  must 
provide  for  these  evils  that  threaten  us, 
but  the  renewal  and  the  preservation  of  a 
national  custom  of  play  and  of  athletic 
sports  is  vital  to  preserve  the  fitness  of 
our  citizenship. 

Competition  in  play  teaches  the  square 
deal.  Competition  in  play  teaches  the 
love  of  the  free  spirit  to  excel  by  one's 
own  merit.  A  nation  that  has  not  forgot 
ten  how  to  play,  a  nation  that  fosters  ath 
letics  is  a  nation  that  is  always  holding  up 
the  high  ideal  of  equal  opportunity  for  all. 


THE  VALTTE  OF  PLAT  229 

Go  back  through  history  and  find  the 
nations  that  did  not  play  and  had  no  out 
door  sports  and  you  will  find  the  nations 
of  oppressed  peoples. 

I  am  making  no  appeal  that  I  will  not 
be  willing  to  have  tested  by  the  standards 
that  good  competitive  sport  has  set  up  in 
all  ages  and  among  all  fair  men.  These 
are  the  standards  of  a  good  citizenship 
which  is  willing  to  play  the  game.  I  want 
behind  me  only  those  who  are  willing  to 
play  the  game.  We  have  had  too  much 
encouragement  from  Washington  given 
to  the  man  who  wanted  to  cut  second  base, 
or  get  something  for  nothing.  In  the  first 
place,  that  is  not  a  square  deal  to  the  rest 
of  us ;  in  the  second  place,  there  is  no  way 
fa>  make  a  delivery  that  is  worth  anything. 

I  have  not  said  anything  yet  about  the 
effect  that  wholesome  play  has  upon 
national  health.  We  received  a  rude 
shock  when  during  the  war  we  came  to 
examine  physically  that  part  orf  our  pop- 


230  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

illation  that  is  commonly  called  "the 
flower  of  American  manhood."  We 
examined  in  the  first  draft  a  little  over 
two  and  a  half  million  men  and  not  count 
ing  those  who  were  rejected  later  at  mobil 
ization  camps,  the  percentage  of  rejec 
tions  on  account  of  physical  unfitness 
went  right  along  day  after  day  between 
twenty-five  and  thirty-three  and  a  third 
per  cent. 

Do  you  know  what  that  means?  It 
means  that  one  out  of  every  three  or  four 
young  Americans  in  their  prime — be 
tween  twenty-one  and  thirty — is  unfit. 
And  although  I  am  not  a  doctor,  nor  even 
a  professor,  I  will  take  a  chance  and  say 
that  most  of  that  unfitness  came  from 
unwise  eating,  sleeping,  bad  habits  and  no 
play,  no  exercise,  no  working  out  the  poi 
sons  in  good  sweat,  no  adjustment  of  the 
human  frame  by  stretching  it  in  competi 
tive  effort. 

Nevertheless  in  spite  of  the  need  for 


THE  VALUE  OF  PLAY  231 

play  to  bring  back  American  bodies  to 
health,  so  that  health  may  be  the  sacred 
heritage  of  children  yet  unborn,  I  put, 
even  above  the  boons  of  health  that  play 
gives,  the  greater  treasures  that  it  confers 
and  always  will  confer  upon  nations  that 
preserve  its  customs  and  its  morals — the 
treasures  of  honor  and  a  sense  of  fair 
play. 


FRATERNITY 

A  MESSAGE  FOB  KNIGHTS  AND  LADIES 


CHAPTER  XIII 

FRATERNITY 

THE  world  has  found  itself  lately  very 
much  committed  to  the  idea  of  frater 
nity.  It  is  the  natural  outcome  of  a  new 
understanding  of  our  relationships.  Fra 
ternity  is  one  of  the  most  natural  things 
in  life.  You  have  seen  it  in  the  organiza 
tion  of  men  into  small  groups,  of  women 
in  their  societies.  You  often  see  it  in  the 
animal  world,  where  nature  has  somehow 
implanted  love  of  life  and  at  the  same 
time  the  love  of  fraternity  and  associa 
tion  together,  and  if  you  stop  to  think 
about  it  you  will  discover  that  in  animal 
life  there  is  the  fraternity  of  protection 
and  mutual  advancement.  This  finds  ex- 
235 


236  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

pression  in  our  human  relationships  in 
various  forms.  I  do  not  suppose  there  is 
a  people  in  all  the  world  that  has  so  devel 
oped  the  fraternity  idea  as  we  have  in  the 
United  States.  I  have  sometimes  won 
dered  how  many  fraternal  orders  there 
are,  secret  and  open. 

But  we  find  fraternity  in  all  the  walks 
of  life.  It  is  a  curious  stage  in  human 
affairs  when  we  have  run  really  to  excess 
in  some  forms  of  organization.  It  is  only 
a  development  of  the  tendencies  of  men 
and  women  of  common  aspirations  to  get 
together  to  further  their  very  natural 
interests.  In  a  broader  sense  we  have 
come  a  little  nearer  to  a  fraternity  of 
nations. 

The  World  War  brought  us  to  a  new 
realization,  that  mankind,  after  all,  is 
interested  in  one  common  purpose, 
namely,  the  uplift  of  mankind.  Nations 
that  were  once  looking  at  each  other  in 
envy  and  jealousy  and  rivalry  have  come 


FKATEBNITY  237 

to  understand  that  their  best  interests  are 
to  be  served  in  mutual  advancement,  and 
we  have  come  to  the  stage  in  human  af 
fairs  where  we  are  seeking  to  put  an  end 
to  warfare  and  to  conflict  and  to  dwell  in 
a  little  closer  understanding. 

I  know  full  well  the  impelling  thoughts 
in  any  helpful  organization.  You  seek  to 
advance  the  standards  of  individual  life ; 
you  seek  to  advance  the  standards  of  your 
common  activities.  You  would  not  go  into 
an  organization  if  you  did  not  think  that, 
individually  and  collectively,  you  would 
be  better  off  because  of  the  association 
which  you  undertake.  And  at  the  same 
time,  while  that  is  your  impelling  thought 
I  know  that  not  a  single  one  of  you  would 
go  into  any  fraternity  that  was  ever  pro 
posed  if  you  thought  it  involved  the  sur 
render  of  anything  you  hold  essential  to 
your  own  individual  life. 

I  recall  many  an  obligation  that  I  have 
come  in  contact  with  in  secret  orders,  and 


238  OUK  COMMON  COUNTRY 

there  isn't  one  that  ever  asked  a  man  to 
surrender  any  of  his  liberties,  any  of  his 
freedom  of  thought,  any  of  his  freedom  of 
religious  belief.  And  making  the  applica 
tion  of  that  point  I  want  to  apply  it  to  na 
tions.  Just  now  we  are  talking  very  much 
about  associations  of  the  nations  of  the 
world.  We,  of  America,  gave  first  the 
finest  illustration  that  was  ever  recorded 
of  a  fraternity  of  nations.  I  like  to  recall 
it.  I  have  spoken  of  it  on  previous  occa 
sions.  Some  twenty  years  ago,  when 
America  had  first  planted  the  flag  of  this 
Republic,  with  every  glittering  star  fixed, 
as  a  banner  of  hope  and  stability  in  the 
Orient,  there  broke  out  in  China  what  was 
known  as  the  Boxer  Rebellion.  The 
rebellious  Boxers  in  their  warfare  endan 
gered  all  the  foreign  residents  in  the  city 
of  Peking.  It  became  necessary  to  send 
a  military  expedition  to  the  relief  of  those 
beleaguered  citizens  of  the  various  na 
tions  o'f  the  earth.  Knd  I  always  like  to 


FRATERNITY  239 

recall  that  a  son  of  my  own  State  of  Ohio 
led  the  military  expedition,  the  late  Gen 
eral  Chaffee.  They  brought  about  the 
relief  of  the  citizens  of  foreign  countries 
imprisoned  in  Peking,  and  in  a  little 
while  the  military  forces  were  withdrawn. 
Then  representatives  of  the  several  na 
tions  engaged  in  that  expedition  sat  about 
a  table  and  figured  out  the  expense  of  the 
several  countries  that  had  sent  military 
relief.  The  sum  presumably  necessary 
to  pay  the  United  States  for  the  protec 
tion  of  its  citizens  was  assessed  against 
China,  and  a  like  sum,  or  proportionate 
sum,  was  assessed  against  the  government 
of  China  for  Germany,  for  Great  Britain, 
for  France,  and  the  other  nations 
involved. 

Later  on  we  came  to  cast  up  the  ac 
counts  in  detail,  and  we  found  that  the 
government  of  China  had  paid  eight  mil 
lion  dollars  in  money  to  the  United  States 
more  than  was  necessary  to  recompense  us 


240  DUB  COMMON  COUNTRY. 

for  our  military  endeavors.  And  the 
United  States  returned  that  money  to 
China,  sent  back  eight  million  dollars  that 
they  had  paid  us  in  that  award — the  first 
time  that  such  a  thing  was  ever  done  in 
the  history  of  the  world.  That  was  the 
first  great  illustration  of  a  fraternal 
spirit  among  nations.  And  that  is  why 
China  plants  its  faith  in  the  example,  in 
the  democracy,  in  the  justice  of  the 
United  States  of  America.  And  we  are 
greater  to-day  by  reason  of  the  example 
which  we  then  set  to  the  world  than  we 
could  ever  hope  to  be  by  force  of  arms,  no 
matter  how  large  our  army  and  navy 
may  be. 

An  interesting  aftermath  resulted  in 
the  Peace  Conference  in  Paris.  China 
went  into  the  war  at  our  request.  I  do  not 
know  that  you  recall  it  but  that  Oriental 
people,  at  the  suggestion  of  the  State 
Department  of  our  country,  declared  wan 
against  the  Central  Empire,  Germany 


FEATERNITY  241 

and  Austro-Hungary.  And  when  the  war 
settlements  came  about  China  sought  to 
be  represented  at  the  Peace  Conference 
and  they  ought  to  have  been  represented. 
For  some  reason  or  other  they  were  not. 
Then  they  said, "  We  will  trust  the  United 
States  of  America  to  represent  us,  with 
confidence  in  that  great  Republic."  And 
yet,  somehow  in  the  Peace  Conference, 
through  contract  secretly  made,  China 
had  no  voice  in  the  settlement  and  instead 
of  being  awarded  the  freedom  of  her  own 
people  under  the  gospel  of  self-determi 
nation  for  which  America  spoke,  several 
million  of  her  people  were  delivered  over 
to  a  rival  nation,  with  the  consent  and 
approval  of  those  who  spoke  for  America 
in  Paris.  But  when  that  covenant  came 
into  the  United  States  Senate,  I  rejoice 
that  there  were  Americans  in  the  United 
States  who  said  "No"  and  that  we  did  not 
approve  of  the  Shantung  award.  And  we 


242  OTJR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

kept  the  plighted  faith  in  the  lesson  we 
taught  China  some  twenty  years  ago. 
Now,  the  obligation  and  the  fraternal 
thought,  as  I  said  a  little  while  ago,  is  that 
you  would  not  enter  into  any  fraternal 
organization,  no  matter  how  high  its 
ideals  might  be,  if  you  thought  it  involved 
the  surrender  of  anything  essential  to 
your  individual  existence.  And  that  is 
precisely  the  doctrine  I  am  trying  to 
preach  just  now  for  the  United  States. 
"We  want  to  be  high  and  eminent  and 
influential  in  the  fraternity  of  nations. 
We  want  to  play  our  part  in  the  promo 
tion  and  maintenance  of  peace  through 
out  the  world ;  aye,  we  want  this  Republic 
to  play  its  part  in  assuring  justice  to  all 
the  world  and  in  advancing  human  kind 
in  every  way  we  can.  In  America  we 
want  to  contribute  our  part  through  the 
application  of  justice  rather  than  the  ap 
plication  of  force ;  and  if  I  can  have  my 
way  of  speaking  for  America  we  will 


FRATERNITY  243 

never  enter  into  a  fraternity  that  is 
founded  on  force.  But  we  do  mean  to 
play  our  part,  our  full  part,  along  the 
lines  of  justice  properly  applied. 

So  with  this  new  international  relation 
ship  proposition,  we  are  saying  that  we  do 
not  intend  to  go  in  so  long  as  it  involves 
the  surrender  of  anything  essential  to  the 
dignity,  freedom  of  action,  freedom  of 
conscience  of  the  United  States  of  Amer 
ica.  But  we  do  willingly  say  that  we  want 
to  join  any  association  of  nations  for  the 
promotion  of  justice,  for  the  felicitation 
of  international  conscience ;  aye,  for  turn 
ing  the  deliberate,  intelligent  public  opin 
ion  of  the  world  upon  international  con 
troversy  so  that  it  may  be  settled  in  the 
applied  conscience  of  nations  rather  than 
through  military  force  directed  by  a  coun 
cil  of  foreign  powers,  with  capacity  to  in 
vite,  aye,  to  order  the  sons  of  America 
into  war  for  the  protection  of  the  bound 
aries  of  nations  across  the  sea.  That 


24!  DTTB  COMMON 

America  will  never  consent  to.  We  have 
our  own  destiny  to  work  out,  and  we  in 
America  have  been  working  it  out  to  the 
astonishment  and  the  admiration,  yes,  to 
the  inspiration,  of  all  the  world. 

I  have  an  abiding  conviction  that 
America  can  play  her  greatest  part  in  the 
furtherance  of  mankind  by  first  making 
sure  of  the  character  of  our  citizenship  at 
home,  and  then  give  to  the  world  the 
American  example  rather  than  the  word 
of  a  Republic  assuming  to  meddle  in  the 
affairs  of  the  nations  of  the  earth. 

I  am  infinitely  concerned  about  pro 
moting  the  spirit  of  fraternity  at  home. 
We  of  America  have  made  a  great  Repub 
lic.  We  have  developed  material  Amer 
ica,  and  we  found  out  in  the  World  War 
that  we  needed  spiritual  America.  I 
never  can  forget  a  development  during 
the  early  days  prior  to  our  entrance  into 
the  war,  when  the  Senate  was  discussing 
the  enactment  of  the  armed  ship  bill. 
!Fha$  is,  the  bill  which  was  to  provide  f  on 


FRATERNITY  245 

arming  our  merchant  ships  for  their  pro 
tection  against  submarine  warfare.  A. 
citizen  of  Marion — and  I  knew  him  well — 
wrote  me  and  said:  "Senator,  why  are 
you  so  anxious  about  protecting  American 
rights?  Don't  you  kjiow,  sir,  there  is  no 
such  thing  as  a  distinctly  American  citi 
zen  ? ' '  This  from  an  American.  When  I 
answered  him,  I  said:  " Maybe  it  is  true, 
as  you  have  written  me,  that  there  is  no 
such  thing  as  a  distinctly  American  citi 
zen,  but  if  that  startling  statement  be 
true,  then,  in  God's  name,  out  of  this  tur 
moil  of  the  world,  out  of  this  travail  of 
civilization,  let  us  have  a  real  American 
come  from  Columbia's  loins  to  leave  us  a 
race  of  Americans  hereafter." 

So  the  World  War  brought  us  to  a  real 
ization  that  we  had  developed  material 
America,  we  had  prospered,  we  had  ad 
vanced  in  education,  in  art,  in  world  influ 
ence  and  had  attained  a  high  place  in 
world  eminence,  and  yet  although  we  are 
a  blend  of  the  peoples  of  the  Old  World, 


246          orR  COMMON 

we  had  given  very  little  consideration  to 
the  development  of  American  spirit 
And  I  am  preaching  the  gospel  from  this 
time  on  of  the  development  of  an  Amer 
ican  soul ;  from  this  time  on  I  am  preach 
ing  the  gospel  of  the  maintenance  of 
American  spirit,  of  the  development  from 
this  time  on  of  a  fraternity  and  a  loyalty 
that  will  make  us  all,  no  matter  whence  we 
came,  American  in  every  heartbeat 

You  can  not  go  on  in  any  other  way. 
Here  in  America  we  have  no  racial  entity. 
We  are  a  blend  or  a  mixture  or  an  asso 
ciation  of  all  the  nations  of  the  earth,  but, 
unhappily,  up  to  the  time  of  the  war  we 
were  very  much  a  collocation  of  peoples ; 
but  from  this  time  on  we  want  to  be  a  fra 
ternity  of  Americans.  From  this  time  on 
we  want  to  continue  to  emphasize  the  nee- 
essity  for  the  elevation  of  the  standard  of 
American  citizenship,  not  in  spirit  alone. 
but  an  elevation  of  the  conditions  under 
which  men  and  women  live. 


THE  VILLAGE 


A  MESSAGE  FOE  HAPPY  AMERICANS 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  VILLAGE 

I  HAVE  been  thinking  of  the  wonderful 
development  of  the  Northwest.  We  take 
things  so  readily  [for  granted  that  we 
never  stoj>  to  think  what  made  us  what  we 
are.  In  the  brief  time  we  have  been 
building  this  wonderful  country  of  ours, 
we  have  been  working  to  the  perfection  of 
a  new  civilization  and  a  habitation  and  a 
condition  which  are  the  pride  of  all  Amer 
icans,  [And  it  is  a  very  wonderful  thing 
to  contemplate  how  much  we  have  accom 
plished  in  less  than  a  century ;  and  when 
you  stop  to  think  about  it,  it  is  all  worked 
out  with  patience  and  continued  endeavor 
in  the  right  direction.  Nothing  great  is 
brought  about  by  the  wave  of  one's  hand. 
249 


250  OUR  COMMON-  COUNTRY 

You  can  not  have  miracles  in  the  Sevelop- 
ment  of  a  country,  and  yet  in  this  wonder 
ful  lands  of  ours,  with  the  Constitution 
only  a  hundred  and  thirty-three  years  old 
and  our  Western  civilization  less  than  a 
century,  we  have  outstripped  every  other 
civilization  in  the  world.  That  is  a  trib 
ute  to  American  accomplishment.  And 
when  I  look  back  upon  it,  I  find  myself 
asking — Why  must  we  be  so  impatient 
with  the  continual  working  out  of  the  pro 
cesses  of  human  advancement?  It  takes 
time  and  understanding  and  an  abiding 
faith  to  do  this.  So  I  want  you  all  to  have 
faith  in  this  country  of  ours. 

I  am  reminded  of  the  thought,  which 
has  oftentimes  been  in  my  mind,  that 
there  is  no  audience  to  which  I  more  de 
light  to  talk  than  that  which  can  be  assem 
bled  in  a  village  community.  I  grew  up 
in  a  village  of  six  hundred,  and  I  know 
something  of  the  democracy,  of  the  sim 
plicity,  of  the  confidence  in — aye,  better 


THE  VILLAGE  251 

yet,  of  the  reverence  for  government,  and 
the  fidelity  to  law  and  its  enforcement,  as 
it  exists  in  the  small  community.  I  do  not 
believe  that  anywhere  in  the  world  there 
is  so  perfect  a  democracy  as  in  the  village. 
You  know  in  the  village  we  know  every 
body  else's  business.  I  grew  up  in  such  a 
community,  and  I  have  often  referred  to 
it  as  a  fine  illustration  of  the  opportuni 
ties  of  American  life. 

There  is  no  social  strata  or  society 
requirement  in  the  village.  About  every 
body  starts  equal.  And  in  the  village 
where  I  was  born  the  blacksmith's  son  and 
the  cobbler's  son  and  the  minister's  son 
and  the  storekeeper's  son  all  had  just  the 
same  chance  in  the  opportunities  of  this 
America  of  ours.  I  wonder  if  it  would 
interest  you  if  I  told  you  about  what  hap 
pened  to  some  of  the  boys  with  whom  I 
went  to  school?  I  like  to  refer  to  it  be 
cause  it  is  the  finest  proof  in  the  world  of 
the  equality  of  American  opportunity  to 


252  OUB  COMMON  COUNTRY 

the  sona  of  this  Republic.  In  the  class 
when  I  was  a  boy  there  was  Ralph.  Well, 
Ralph  was  a  bruiser  among  the  boys  and 
I  would  have  picked  him  out  for  a  prize 
fighter.  Man  grown,  I  looked  him  up.  I 
had  not  seen  him  for  thirty  years,  and 
instead  of  finding  him  a  pugilistically 
inclined  citizen,  I  found  him  at  the  head 
of  the  bank  in  the  village  where  we  grew 
up,  as  peaceful  and  able  as  any  man  in 
the  community.  Then  there  was  Wheeler. 
If  there  was  any  boy  in  our  crowd  who 
started  with  greater  advantage  in  money, 
he  was  the  fellow.  He  had  inherited  three 
thousand  dollars — and  that  was  an  awful 
amount  of  money  in  those  days.  But 
Wheeler  went  the  wrong  way,  and  came  to 
failure.  Then  there  was  Prank.  Frank 
was  the  village  carpenter's  son;  but 
Frank  to-day  is  one  of  the  great  captains 
of  industry  in  Chicago,  and  before  the 
World  War  advanced  salaries  and  com 
pensation,  he  was  getting  twenty-five 


THE  VILLAGE  253 

thousand  dollars  a  year.  A  Village  Boy! 
Then  there  was  Ed,  the  cobbler's  son.  He 
wanted  to  be  a  geologist.  He  had  once 
heard  a  geologist  lecture.  So  he  started 
to  study  geology,  and  in  order  to  study  to 
more  advantage,  because  his  father  was 
not  able  to  send  him  to  college,  he  became 
a  Pullman  car  conductor,  to  study  as  he 
worked.  .What  do  you  think  became  of 
Ed,  aspiring  to  become  a  geologist?  Ed 
turned  out  to  be  a  preacher  and  he  is  a 
great  preacher  this  day.  !And  BO  I  might 
run  on — but  I  must  tell  you  about  another 
one.  Let  us  say  that  his  name  was  Char 
lie.  He  was  the  local  grocer's  son.  Well, 
you  would  not  have  thought  he  had  any 
special  advantage  but  hia  father  loved 
him  and  sent  him  to  college.  He  is  one  of 
the  great  lawyers  of  Ohio  to-day  and  he 
measures  his  wealth  in  large  figures  and 
he  never  cheated  anybody  out  of  a  cent. 
Then  there  was,  let  us  say,  Henry.  Henry 
was  the  brightest  boy  of  his  class.  The 


254  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

teacher  always  pointed  him  out  as  the 
pride  of  the  school.  He  was  the  one  to 
whom  we  always  had  to  look  as  an  exam 
ple  of  youthful  brilliancy  in  the  village. 
.We  were  all  envious  of  him.  What  do 
you  suppose  became  of  this  brightest 
luminary  of  them  all  ?  I  found  him  in  a 
village,  the  janitor  of  his  lodge,  and  in 
spite  of  his  less  important  achievements 
he  was  the  happiest  one  of  the  lot.  What 
is  the  greatest  thing  in  life,  my  country 
men?  Happiness.  And  there  is  more 
happiness  in  the  American  village  than 
any  other  place  on  the  face  of  the  earth. 
So  I  like  to  preach  the  gospel  of  under 
standing  in  America,  the  utter  abolition 
of  class  and  every  thought  of  it ;  the  main 
tenance  of  American  institutions,  the 
things  we  have  inherited,  and  above  all 
continued  freedom  for  the  United  States, 
without  dictation  or  direction  from  any 
body  else  in  all  the  world. 


TWO  WARS 

A  MESSAGE  FOB  VETERANS 


CHAPTER  XV 

TWO  WARS 

WHEN  I  stop  to  think  of  the  long  period 
that  has  passed  since  our  G.  1&  E.  Veter 
ans  went  to  the  front  in  1861  it  brings  to 
me  a  new  realization  of  what  they  did, 
first  in  service  to  country  in  preserving 
nationality  and  second  in  laying  down 
arms  and  returning  to  citizenship,  giving 
to  the  country  the  leaven  of  patriotism. 

From  my  earliest  recollections  I  have 
a  distinct  remembrance  of  Civil  War  sol 
diers  in  their  activities  of  citizenship  and 
their  marked  influence  in  political  prog 
ress.  If  the  millions  of  sons  who  went 
forth  in  the  defense  of  our  national  rights 
in  the  World  War  can  turn  to  a  new  birth 
257 


258  OTJB  COMMON  COTJNTKYi 

of  patriotism  as  you  did,  that  will  com 
pensate  us  for  all  our  part  in  the  great 
world  struggle.  The  man  who  goes  forth 
to  offer  all  on  the  altars  of  country  re 
turns  a  better  patriot.  We  need  a  new 
birth  of  patriotism  in  our  country. 

Our  veterans  didn't  enter  the  war  to 
free  the  slave,  although  that  was  a  becom 
ing  ideal.  They  didn't  go  to  war  because 
they  hated  any  group  in  the  South  or  to 
establish  any  new  conception  of  justice. 
But  they  entered  the  conflict  because  they 
found  the  Union  was  threatened;  they 
went  to  save  the  Union  and  nationality. 

There  have  been  a  variety  of  opinions 
as  to  why  their  grandsons  went  to  war. 
Their  sons  went  to  war  with  Spain  for 
humanity.  Some  have  said  that  their 
grandsons  went  to  war  for  democracy  and 
some  that  they  went  forth  to  insure  that 
there  would  be  no  wars  in  the  future.  If 
we  went  to  war  for  democracy,  shouldn't 
we  have  gone  in  when  it  first  started? 


TWO  WAKS  259 

And  if  we  went  to  war  to  insure  that  there 
would  be  no  more  wars,  shouldn't  we  have 
gone  in  before  so  many  millions  had  been 
sacrificed? 

The  simple  truth  is  that  their  grand 
sons  went  to  war  when;Congress  made  the 
declaration  because  our  nationality  and 
rights  had  been  threatened.  Then  it  was 
possible  to  call  the  sons  of  America  to 
battle. 

That  doesn't  mean  that  when  the  war  is 
over  we  should  surrender  what  we  went 
in  to  maintain.  If  it  is  within  my  power, 
there  will  never  be  a  surrender  of  that 
which  you  have  handed  down  to  the  gen 
eration  of  to-day. 


THE  MEANING  OF  THE 
AEMISTIGE 

A  MESSAGE  FOE  PATRIOTS 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THE  MEANING  OF  THE  ARMISTICE 

November  the  eleventh  has  an  abiding 
significance  to  America  and  the  world. 
For  America  it  sealed  our  capacity  to  de 
fend  our  national  rights  and  stamped  our 
effectiveness  in  aiding  to  preserve  the 
established  order  of  world  civilization; 
for  the  world  it  marked  a  new  order  for 
humanity,  and  for  all  time  it  warns  ambi 
tion  and  madness  for  power  that  one 
man's  or  one  people's  domination  of  the 
world  never  was  designed  by  God  and 
never  will  be  tolerated  by  mankind. 

The  day  is  especially  interesting  to  our 
own  country,  because  without  American 
participation  it  might  have  been  a  later 
263 


264  OTJB  COMMON  COUNTRY 

and  a  different  date,  if  indeed  there  had 
been  an  armistice  day  at  all.  We  do  not 
claim  to  have  won  the  war,  but  we  helped 
mightily  and  recorded  undying  glory  to 
American  arms  and  gave  the  world  a  new 
understanding  of  the  American  spirit 
and  a  new  measure  of  American 
resources. 

Whatever  the  world  may  have  thought 
of  us  before,  however  incorrectly  we  may 
have  been  appraised,  the  world  has  come 
to  know  that  selfishness  is  not  a  trait  of 
our  national  character,  that  commercial 
ism  does  not  engross  us,  that  neutrality 
was  conceived  in  fairness — not  in  fear — 
and  that  when  our  national  rights  are 
threatened  and  our  nationals  are  sacri 
ficed,  America  is  resolved  to  defend,  and 
ever  will.  More,  we  gave  to  humanity  an 
example  of  unselfishness  which  it  only 
half  appraised  before  misunderstandings 
led  to  confusion. 

We  helped  to  win  the  war,  unaided  and 


THE  MEANING  OF  THE  ARMISTICE      2(5D 

unmortgaged.  "We  fought  with  the  Allied 
Powers,  and  were  never  committed,  if 
fully  aware  of  them,  to  the  compacts  of 
the  alliance. 

History  will  record  it  correctly,  no  mat 
ter  how  much  beautiful  sentiment  has  be 
clouded  our  purposes  in  the  World  War. 
We  did  not  fight  to  make  the  world  safe 
for  democracy,  though  we  were  its  best 
exemplars.  Nor  did  we  fight  for  human 
ity's  sake,  no  matter  how  such  a  cause 
impelled.  Democracy  was  threatened  and 
humanity  was  dying  long  before  Amer 
ican  indignation  called  for  the  Republic's 
defense.  But  we  fought  for  the  one  su 
preme  cause  which  inspires  men  to  offer 
all  for  country  and  the  flag,  and  we 
fought  as  becomes  a  free  America,  and 
dropped  hatred  and  stifled  greed  when 
the  victory  for  defense  was  won. 

We  proved  anew  that  there  is  a  free 
and  ample  America,  which  does  not  ask, 
but  freely  gives.  We  were  American  in 


266  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

name  before  the  World  War  made  us 
American  in  fact,  not  a  collection  of  peo 
ples,  but  one  people  with  one  purpose,  one 
confidence,  one  pride,  one  aspiration  and 
one  flag. 

We  learned  a  lesson,  too,  of  transcend 
ing  importance.  Righteousness  and  un 
failing  justice  are  not  in  themselves  a 
guaranty  of  national  security.  We  must 
be  ever  strong  in  peace,  foremost  in  indus 
try,  eminent  in  agriculture,  ample  in 
transportation.  Better  transportation  on 
land  and  an  adequate  merchant  marine 
would  have  speeded  our  participation  and 
shortened  the  conflict.  I  believe  an 
America  eminent  on  the  high  seas,  re 
spected  in  every  avenue  of  trade,  will  be 
safer  at  home  and  greater  in  influence 
throughout  the  world. 

I  like  to  think  of  an  America  whose  cit 
izens  are  ever  seeking  the  greater  develop 
ment  and  enlarged  resources  and  widened 
influence  of  the  Eepublic,  and  I  like  to 


THE  MEANING  OF  THE  ARMISTICE     267 

think  of  a  government  which  protects 
its  citizens  wherever  they  go  on  a  lawful 
mission,  anywhere  nnder  the  shining  sun. 

All  the  way  from  my  home  in  Ohio  to 
the  furthermost  port  on  the  Gulf  I  have 
seen  among  the  people' who  came  to  give 
us  kindly  greetings  scores  of  stalwart,  vir 
ile  young  Americans  who  served  their 
country  so  gallantly  and  effectively  at 
home  and  overseas.  One  must  have  cause 
for  renewed  pride  in  the  character  of 
these  men,  in  their  readiness  and  capacity 
to  serve,  in  the  certitude  of  their  man 
hood,  in  their  new  baptism  of  American 
ism.  These  soldiers  of  the  Republic,  like 
their  fathers,  believe  in  an  America  of 
civil  and  human  and  religious  liberty, 
they  believe  in  an  America  of  American 
ideals.  They  believe  in  America  first,  for 
it  is  in  America  that  their  hopes  and  in 
spirations  center. 

We  choose  no  aloofness,  we  shirk  no 
obligation,  we  forsake  no  friends,  but  we 


268  OUK  COMMON  COTTNTBH 

build  in  nationality,  and  we  do  not  mean 
to  surrender  it. 

Our  young  veterans  believe  it  is  only 
morning  to  the  life  of  the  Eepublic  and 
they  want  to  look  forward  to  the  surpass 
ing  noonday  of  national  life,  where  this 
Eepublic  shall  be  the  foremost  nationality 
among  the  nations  of  the  earth.  I  believe 
with  them  and  with  you  that  our  sure  path 
is  the  American  path.  I  do  not  believe 
the  wisdom  of  Washington  and  Jefferson 
and  Hamilton  is  to  be  ignored,  nor  are  the 
chivalry  of  Lee  and  the  magnanimity  of 
Grant  to  be  forgotten,  nor  can  the  su 
preme  belief  of  Lincoln  in  union  and 
nationality  be  forgotten  nor  the  outstand 
ing  Americanism  of  Theodore  Eoosevelt 
fail  to  stir  our  hearts. 


THE  FEDERAL  CONSTITUTION 


A  MESSAGE  AND  A  MEMOEIAL 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE  FEDERAL  CONSTITUTION 

AMERICA  uncovers  in  observance  of  the 
133rd  anniversary  of  the  birthday  of  the 
nation.  I  do  not  say  the  birthday  of 
American  freedom,  which  we  celebrate 
variously,  though  always  patriotically,  on 
July  4,  in  reverence  for  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  but  this  day  is  the  anni 
versary  of  the  literal  birthday  of  our 
American  nation. 

I  can  never  forget  that,  in  the  begin 
ning,  independence  was  one  thing  and  na 
tionality  quite  another.  The  Declaration 
of  Independence  was  the  proclamation  of 
the  representatives  of  the  colonies,  ani 
mated  by  a  common  purpose  and  aroused 
by;  a  common  oppression.  They  were 
271 


272  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

brought  into  a  comradeship  of  suffering, 
privation  and  war,  and  the  magnificent 
Declaration  of  Independence  was  the 
bold,  clear  statement  of  human  rights  by 
an  association  of  fearless  men  who  knew 
they  were  speaking  for  liberty.  It  might 
have  been  the  declaration  of  any  people 
anywhere  who  had  equal  reasons  and  like 
aspirations,  because  it  is  the  most  compre 
hensive  bill  of  rights  in  all  the  annals  of 
civilized  government.  Under  the  Decla 
ration,  the  colonies  fought  for  freedom, 
and  then  in  the  chaos  of  victory  they 
turned  to  nationality  as  the  necessary 
means  of  its  preservation.  In  short,  free 
dom  inspired  and  nationality  was  invoked 
in  order  to  preserve. 

We  take  it  all  so  much  as  a  matter  of 
course  now,  that  we  little  appreciate  the 
marvel  of  the  beginning.  One  may  well 
wonder  that  the  colonists  succeeded  in 
their  warfare  for  independence,  because 
they  were  battling  against  the  command- 


THE  FEDEKAL  CONSTITUTION-          273 

ing  power  of  the  Old  World.  They  were 
little  prepared,  they  were  lacking  in  re 
sources  and  they  knew  nothing  of  con 
cord,  except  in  the  universal  desire  for 
freedom.  It  is  well  to  remember  that  the 
colonies  were  not  imbued  with  any 
thought  of  a  common  purpose  except  for 
freedom  itself.  There  was  no  distinctly 
American  spirit  which  was  common  to 
them  all.  They  were  strung  along  the 
shores  of  the  Atlantic  Ocean  and  widely 
separated  by  miles  of  distance  and  by 
leagues  of  primeval  forests  and  they  were 
much  more  separated  by  the  diversity  of 
the  origin  of  their  population,  by  differ 
ences  in  religion,  in  ideals  and  manners  of 
life.  The  whole  thought  of  their  associa 
tion  was  that  of  an  offensive  and  defen 
sive  alliance  against  foreign  aggression, 
and  there  was  no  suggestion  of  a  national 
feeling  or  aspiration  before,  during  or 
immediately  following  the  successful  War 
for  Independence. 


274  OUK  COMMON  COUNTRY 

Indeed,  there  were  conflicting  interests 
of  sections  and  states,  there  were  wide 
diversities  of  opinion,  especially  with 
respect  to  the  merits  of  royalism  and 
democracy,  there  were  envies  and  jealous 
ies,  there  were  differences  of  methods  and 
varieties  of  practises — all  making  a  sit 
uation  in  which  it  was  difficult  to  commit 
the  free  colonies  to  anything  more  than 
the  futile  articles  of  confederation. 

Almost  a  decade  passed  before  the 
dream  of  erecting  upon  this  new  conti 
nent  a  great  and  strong  nation  "  dedicated 
to  liberty"  became  a  compelling  vision, 
and  forced  its  way  upon  the  waking,  act 
ive  hours  of  the  more  progressive  and 
thoughtful  men  of  the  colonies.  It  is  even 
true  that  a  fundamental  federal  law  was 
not  in  contemplation  by  most  of  the  dele 
gates  who  assembled  in  the  first  conven 
tion,  and  many  of  those  who  attended 
would  not  have  been  present  had  they 
known  that  such  a  work  was  to  be  under- 


THE  FEDERAL  CONSTITUTION          275 

taken.  Surely  a  supreme  federal  govern 
ment  was  not  in  the  minds  of  a  majority 
of  the  delegates.  In  that  convention  were 
men  of  every  type  of  mind.  There  were 
Puritan  and  Cavalier,  Quaker  and  athe 
ist,  autocrat  and  peasant,  Yankee  and 
slave-holder.  Among  them  there  were, 
even  as  there  are  now,  the  extremists  who 
favored  autocracy  or  the  commune.  Un 
der  other  names,  but  easily  identified  with 
present-day  prototypes,  they  had  the 
reactionary,  Bolshevik,  Socialist,  Repub 
lican,  Democrat,  Prohibitionist,  Liberal 
and  what-not. 

It  was  difficult  timber  out  of  which  to 
erect  the  enduring  temple  of  the  Republic, 
and  I  think  it  worth  our  while  to  recall 
this  to  lead  us  to  greater  appreciation.  I 
can  well  believe  that  the  hand  of  destiny 
must  have  directed  them;  and  the 
supreme  accomplishment  was  wrought  be 
cause  God  Himself  had  a  purpose  to  serve 
in  the  making  of  the  new  Republic. 


276  OtJE  COMMON  COUNTRY 

The  formulated  work  of  the  convention 
of  1787  was  not  contribution,  even  in  fun 
damentals,  of  one  mind.  The  best  men  in 
the  colonies  were  among  the  delegates, 
and  it  is  inspiring  to  recall  that  the  presi 
dent  of  the  convention  was  George  Wash 
ington.  It  is  equally  pleasing  to  note  that 
this  great  man,  born  to  wealth  and  posi 
tion,  allied  by  blood  to  the  titled  aristoc 
racy  of  England,  said  to  be  the  richest 
American  of  his  time,  commander-in- 
chief  of  a  victorious  army  which  idolized 
him,  who  had  put  resolutely  away  the 
offer  of  a  crown  offered  by  men  who  could 
have  delivered  it,  stood  steadfastly  in 
this  convention,  as  always,  for  a  repub 
lican  form  of  government. 

The  debates  of  the  constitutional  con 
vention  show  that  every  known  form  of 
government  had  its  advocates ;  that  every 
proposition  presented  was  discussed, 
amended,  revised  and  reviewed,  again  and 
again.  The  result  was  in  every  instance, 


THE  FEDERAL  CONSTITUTION          277 

compromise  or  conviction,  as  must  be  the 
case  when  the  collective  judgment  and  not 
the  individual  will  is  sought. 

There  were  many  times  when  it  seemed 
that  the  convention  must  adjourn  in  im 
potence.  The  strain  ,upon  mental  and 
physical  and  nervous  energies  was  ex 
hausting.  Public  feeling  ran  high  and 
fear  of  a  war  between  the  colonies  was 
justifiable.  It  was  the  venerable  Frank 
lin,  sage  and  patriot,  who  at  a  critical 
time,  asked  the  convention  to  cease  from 
its  labors,  lay  aside  its  differences,  and 
reverently  and  trustfully  invoke  the 
Divine  guidance.  And  I  am  one  who 
firmly  believes  that  that  prayer  was 
answered. 

Out  of  this  chaos  of  opinion,  out  of  this 
rivalry  and  conflict,  out  of  this  ferment 
of  New  World  liberty,  came  the  great 
experiment,  the  first  written  constitution 
evolved  in  the  history  of  the  world.  It  was 
not  the  product  of  any  one  mind.  I  have 


278  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

always  thought  Hamilton  to  have  been 
the  inspiring  genius,  though  Madison  con 
tributed  very  largely,  and  Franklin's  wis 
dom  was  never  ignored.  Probably  no 
conclusion  could  ever  have  been  reached 
without  the  compelling  efforts  of  Wash 
ington.  It  was  not  the  matching  of  minds 
except  in  the  spirited  debate.  Such  a 
document  was  of  necessity  the  result  of  a 
meeting  of  minds  in  unselfish,  conscien 
tious  and  truly  patriotic  purposes.  I 
believe  such  a  meeting  of  minds  in  high 
purpose  to  be  the  most  effective  agency 
possible  in  the  conduct  of  public  affairs. 

It  has  been  said  by  those  who  disparage 
our  government  that  our  Constitution 
contains  nothing  new  fundamentally. 
That  might  be  said  of  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount;  it  might  be  said,  and  truthfully, 
of  the  components  of  any  plan,  or  theory 
or  practise  in  government,  or  science  or 
religion.  But  in  combination,  in  essence 
and  results  it  was  new. 


THE  FEDERAL  CONSTITUTION          279 

William  Pitt  said  of  the  American  Con 
stitution:  "It  will  be  the  wonder  and  ad 
miration  of  all  future  generations  and  the 
model  of  all  future  constitutions." 

Gladstone  said :  "It  is  the  greatest  piece 
of  work  ever  struck  off  at  a  given  time  by 
the  brain  and  purpose  of  man." 

James  Bryce,  the  most  distinguished 
and  unprejudiced  commentator  upon  the 
Constitution  said:  "History  shows  few 
instruments  which  in  so  few  words  lay 
down  equally  momentous  rules  on  a  vast 
range  of  matters  of  the  highest  import 
ance  and  complexity."  And  for  illustra 
tion,  he  observes  that  our  Federal  Consti 
tution  with  its  amendments  may  be  read 
aloud  in  twenty-three  minutes ;  that  it  is 
only  about  half  as  long  as  Paul's  first 
epistle  to  the  Corinthians — and  only  one- 
fortieth  part  as  long  as  the  Irish  land  act 
of  1881. 

It  was  Pitt  who  spoke  with  the  spirit  of 
prophecy,  for  our  Constitution  in  essen- 


280  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

tials  has  been  the  model  for  every  consti 
tution  formulated  by  civilized  peoples 
since  its  enactment,  and  every  govern 
ment  but  our  own  has  materially  changed 
in  form  since  ours  was  established  by  the 
adoption  of  the  Constitution  of  1787. 

And  what  did  this  Constitution  do  ?  It 
provided  a  practical,  workable,  popular, 
central  government  upon  the  representa 
tive  plan,  while  reserving  to  the  people  in 
the  states  and  their  political  subdivisions 
the  control  of  their  local  affairs.  It  pro 
vided  a  government  of  checks  and  bal 
ances,  which  made  the  will  of  the  majority 
determinable  and  effective,  but  protected 
the  rights  of  the  minority. 

It  was  written  in  six  months  to  meet  an 
impending  crisis,  and  it  was  written  to 
provide  a  central  government  for  the  peo 
ple  of  thirteen  scattered  colonies,  having 
a  total  population  smaller  than  now  lives 
within  the  confines  of  several  of  our 
cities,  and  yet  it  was  so  soundly  conceived 


THE  FEDEKAL  CONSTITUTION          281 

and  so  masterfully  written  that  its  pro 
visions  fully  meet  the  actual  govern 
mental  needs  of  a  hundred  and  twenty 
millions  of  people,  as  well  as  the  con 
ditions  which  are  revealed  in  an  experi 
ence  of  a  hundred  and  thirty-three  years 
— and,  I  believe,  of  all  the  years  to  come. 

It  provides  for  a  free  government  of 
free  men.  Under  it  there  is  freedom  of 
thought  and  expression,  freedom  of  wor 
ship,  freedom  of  action  within  the  law 
and  the  rights  of  others. 

Under  it  there  is  no  reason  for  revolt, 
no  necessity  for  resort  to  violence.  Any 
cause  which  can  enlist  a  majority  of  the 
free,  untrammelled  electors  of  this  land 
may,  under  the  Constitution,  win  its 
dominance.  The  will  of  the  people,  ex 
pressed  at  the  ballot  boxes  of  the  Eepub- 
lic,  can  change  our  government,  as  well  as 
its  policies,  may  even  abolish  the  Consti 
tution  itself. 


282  OUK  COMMON  COUNTRY 

This  fact  should  make  us  even  less  tol 
erant  of  the  lawless  men  who  seek  to 
establish,  by  threat  or  violence,  the  rule  of 
minorities  or  of  classes,  which  inevitably 
becomes  autocracy  or  anarchy. 

The  patriots  of  1787  devised  a  govern 
ment  to  do  the  things  so  wonderfully  and 
graphically  expressed  in  the  preamble : 

"We,  the  people  of  the  United  States, 
in  order  to  form  a  more  perfect  union, 
establish  justice,  insure  domestic  tran 
quillity,  provide  for  the  common  defense, 
promote  the  general  welfare,  and  secure 
the  blessings  of  liberty  to  ourselves  and 
our  posterity,  do  ordain  and  establish  this 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  of 
America." 

Can  any  of  you,  my  friends,  conceive  a 
clearer  statement  of  a  noble  purpose  ?/- 
Can  you  suggest  the  insertion  or  elision  of 
a  word  or  phrase  which  would  improve  it ; 
can  any  one  name  a  single  ideal  of  pop 
ular  government  which  is  not  covered  by 


THE  FEDERAL  CONSTITUTION          283 

its  beautifully  concise,  but  comprehen 
sive,  phraseology  ? 

And  the  constitutional  provisions  are 
as  clearly  stated  and  as  patriotically  con 
ceived.  Let  us  look  for  a  moment  into  the 
fundamentals  of  our  Constitution. 

It  provides  for  three  departments  of 
government :  the  legislative,  the  executive 
and  the  judicial — the  legislative  to  make 
the  laws,  the  executive  to  administer  and 
enforce  them,  the  judicial  to  interpret 
and  construe  them. 

The  legislative  power  was  vested  in 
Congress,  and  the  provisions  relating  to 
Congress  are  wonderful  in  the  far-seeing 
wisdom  of  the  constitution-writers.  It 
was  provided  that  Congress  was  to  be 
composed  of  a  Senate  and  a  House  of 
Representatives.  The  latter  to  be  the 
popular  body;  its  members  to  be  elected 
by  the  people  every  two  years.  They 
were  to  be  chosen  from  districts  erected 
upon  the  basis  of  total  population.  This 


284  OTTB  COMMON  COUNTRY 

was  intended  to  give  equality  of  represen 
tation  throughout  the  country.  These 
districts,  under  the  proposed  apportion 
ment,  were  to  be  small  enough  so  as  to 
have  only  one  or  few  dominant  interests ; 
this  would  bring  all  interests  under  con 
sideration  in  the  house.  The  members 
were  to  be  elected  for  two  years — thus 
giving  the  electors  frequent  opportunity 
of  selecting  their  representatives  and 
sending  them  with  fresh  mandates  from 
the  people. 

The  Senate  was  intended  to  be  the 
deliberative  body — the  check  and  brake 
upon  the  wheels  of  legislation.  Its  mem 
bers  were  to  be  elected  from  the  state  by 
the  legislatures  thereof  and  for  a  term  of 
six  years.  This  was  to  give  stability  to 
their  positions  and  remove  them  from  the 
influence  of  temporary  excitement.  As 
the  members  of  the  house  came  from  dis 
tricts  based  on  population  giving  the 
larger  states  or  communities  a  preponder- 


THE  FEDERAL  CONSTITUTION          285 

ance  of  power  and  strength  in  that  body, 
the  rights  of  the  minority — and  the 
smaller  states — were  safeguarded  by  a 
provision  that  every  state  should  be 
entitled  to  two  members  of  the  Senate. 
Could  anything  be  fairer  or  more  prac 
tical  than  these  provisions?  Under  them 
we  had  in  the  most  practical  form  the  so- 
called  modern  idea  of  the  initiative,  refer 
endum  and  recall.  Any  district  through 
its  representative  could  initiate  a  bill ;  the 
right  of  petition  to  Congress  was  estab 
lished.  That  gave  the  initiative.  The 
election  of  a  new  Congress  every  two 
years  gave  an  opportunity  for  the  refer 
endum  and  recall. 

And  it  worked.  No  proposed  legisla 
tive  matter  having  the  support  of  any  con 
siderable  minority  of  electors  ever  failed 
of  introduction  or  consideration  by 
Congress. 

The  " Pounding  Fathers"  were  deter 
mined  to  maintain  the  independence  of 


286  OTJB  COMMON  COUNTRY 

action  of  the  three  departments  of  gov 
ernment.  They  provided  that  the  presi 
dent  should  be  elected  by  persons  ap 
pointed  as  electors  by  the  states,  but  they 
provided  also  that  no  member  of  Congress 
or  officer  of  the  government  should  be  an 
elector. 

They  provided  that  the  president 
should  have  the  veto  over  the  acts  of  Con 
gress — but  they  provided  that  Congress, 
by  a  two-thirds  vote,  could  nullify  his 
veto. 

In  the  constitutional  convention  it  was 
proposed  that  the  judiciary  should  be 
appointed  by  the  Senate — but  it  was  held 
that  this  would  place  the  judges  under 
obligations  to  the  Senate.  Then  it  was 
proposed  that  they  should  be  appointed 
by  the  president,  and  it  was  held  that  this 
would  make  the  judges  subservient  to  the 
executive  and  give  him  power  to  override 
the  courts  and  set  aside  the  will  of  the  peo 
ple  as  expressed  in  law.  And  so  the  con- 


THE  FEDERAL  CONSTITUTION  287 

vention  provided  that  the  judges  should 
be  appointed  by  the  president  with  the 
advice  and  consent  of  the  Senate. 

At  first  the  power  to  make  treaties  with 
other  governments  was  proposed  to  be 
conferred  upon  the  Senate,  but  it  was 
agreed  finally  that  there  should  be  a 
division  of  responsibility  and  power. 
And  despite  the  construction  placed  upon 
the  language  of  this  provision,  I  ask  your 
attention  to  its  statement:  "He  (the 
president)  shall  have  power,  by  and  with 
the  advice  and  consent  of  the  Senate,  to 
make  treaties,  provided  two-thirds  of  the 
Senators  present  concur/'  Can  any 
.American  wonder  that  members  of  the 
Senate,  in  complying  with  their  solemn 
oath  of  office,  insisted  upon  safeguarding 
America  when  the  president  proposed  to 
submerge  our  nationality  in  a  super-gov 
ernment  of  the  world? 

Looking  back  now,  it  is  easy  to  under 
stand  that  the  fathers  of  the  Republic  had 


288  OTJK  COMMON  COUNTKY, 

no  reasonable  conception  of  the  mighty 
possibilities  in  its  development,  nor  did 
they  begin  to  appreciate  the  magnitude  of 
the  great  thing  they  accomplished  in  writ 
ing  the  fundamental  law,  and  yet  some 
how  a  sense  of  the  tremendous  importance 
must  have  been  upon  them.  Bancroft 
wrote:  "The  members  were  awestruck  at 
the  result  of  their  councils.  The  Constitu 
tion  was  a  nobler  work  than  they  had 
believed  it  possible  to  devise." 

Our  nation  is  one  and  one-third  centur 
ies  old,  which  is  but  a  very  brief  period  in 
the  story  of  mankind.  There  are  some  rare 
instances  in  which  three  generations  in 
one  family  stretch  from  the  immortal 
beginning  to  the  wonderful  now.  I  have, 
myself,  in  these  later  years,  met  great 
grandchildren  of  those  who  participated 
in  the  making  of  the  Constitution,  yet  in 
that  stretch  of  time  we  have  grown  to  be 
the  greatest  Republic  on  the  face  of  the 
earth,  and  the  work  which  the  fathers  did 


THE  FEDERAL  CONSTITUTION'          289 

in  their  day  still  lives  in  full  force  as  the 
fundamental  law  of  the  oldest  living 
Republic. 

This  makes  it  easy  to  understand  why 
the  constitution-makers  did  not  appre 
ciate  the  greatness  of  their  achievement. 
They  stood  too  close  for  full  realization, 
but  we  may  contemplate  it  to-day  in  the 
revealing  light  of  history  and  from  the 
view-point  of  American  accomplishments. 
One  by  one  European  autocracies  have 
yielded,  until,  in  the  last  great  onrush  of 
democracy,  practically  all  nations  have 
been  engulfed,  even  steadfast  and  solid 
Britain  has  shaken  off  the  control  which 
her  aristocracy  wielded  for  centuries,  and 
has  raised  her  House  of  Commons  to  prac 
tically  unrestricted  authority. 

America  alone  among  the  great  nations 
of  the  world  has  undergone  no  change  or 
vicissitude  which  in  itself  has  not  proved 
to  be  strengthening,  both  materially  and1 
spiritually.  An  anchor  our  Constitution; 


290  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

has  been  called,  but  if  it  be  so  regarded  it 
can  not  be  held  a  rigid,  immovable  thing, 
but  rather  as  a  sheet  anchor,  serving  only 
to  keep  the  great  ship  safe  and  steady  on 
her  course;  because  there  is  nothing  in 
elastic  in  our  basic  law.  Almost  immedi 
ately  the  "Bill  of  Eights"  for  men  was 
added  and  now,  by  the  votes  of  men,  the 
yet  more  striking  "Bill  of  Rights"  for 
women  has  been  adopted. 

During  all  these  years  the  Constitution 
has  never  failed  America  and  despite 
heedless  assertions  to  the  contrary  which 
occasionally  reach  our  ears,  America  has 
never  failed  the  world.  Not  only  has  she 
afforded  a  safe  refuge  and  unrestricted 
opportunity  to  oppressed  beings  every 
where,  but  by  showing  that  "liberty  with 
law  is  fire  on  the  hearth,  but  liberty  with 
out  law  is  fire  on  the  floor,"  she  has 
proved  democracy  itself.  Far  more  by 
force  of  example  than  by  force  of  arms, 
she  has  shattered  the  idols  of  monarchy 


'  DPHE  FEDERAL  CONSTITUTION          291 

and  brought  thrones  crashing  to  the 
ground.  And  now,  as  ever  before  when 
distracted  peoples  are  in  the  throes  of  a 
rebirth  of  nations,  she  stands  ready,  and 
let  us  hope,  will  be  in  a  position,  through 
earnest  cooperation  of  all  branches  of  our 
government,  to  lend  a  helping  hand.  To 
" America  First,"  as  pledged  by  the  indi 
vidual,  I  would  add  simply  as  addressed 
to  the  nation,  "To  thine  own  self  be  true." 
Under  the  Constitution  we  have  pros 
pered  and  developed ;  under  the  Constitu 
tion  we  have  kept  alive  the  watch-fires  of 
freedom  and  have  maintained  the  open 
door  of  liberty.  Under  the  Constitution 
we  have  seen  millions  of  people,  self-gov 
erned,  self-controlled,  work  out  their 
destiny  in  ordered  liberty.  Under  the 
Constitution  we  have  worshiped  God  in 
accordance  with  conscience  without  hin 
drance,  and  we  have  seen  the  reins  of 
power  transferred  from  hand  to  hand,  in 
bloodless  revolution,  at  the  peoples'  behest. 


292  OTJB  COMMON  COUNTRY 

Tinder  the  Constitution  we  have  wel 
comed  the  oppressed  or  unfortunate  of 
every  land,  and  shared  with  those  who 
desired  and  deserved  our  heritage  and 
citizenship. 

Under  our  Constitution,  with  the 
amendments  so  readily  made  when  major 
settlement  is  evoked,  every  man  and  every 
woman  may  have  an  equal  voice  and  vote 
in  the  government  which  he  helps  estab 
lish,  maintain  and  direct.  Under  it  the 
rights  of  each  and  all  are  guaranteed. 
Every  citizen  is  made,  so  far  as  our 
imperfect  human  nature  permits,  safe  in 
his  person,  his  property,  his  rights  of 
every  kind. 

No  honest  man,  who  loves  his  kind,  can 
ask  more  than  that.  When  he  does  not 
receive  that,  the  fault  is  all  or  partly  his 
own,  and  flows  not  from  failure  of  plan 
of  government,  but  from  failure  of 
performance. 

We  date  our  independence  to  the  mem- 


THE  FEDERAL  CONSTITUTION          293 

orable  July  day  in  1776  when  the  bell  of 
Independence  Hall  "rang  out  liberty"  to 
all  the  peoples  of  the  world.  I  know  that 
the  confederation  of  colonies  was  the 
great,  the  essential  step  toward  the  con 
solidation  of  victories  of  the  Revolution, 
but  it  was  the  ratification  of  the  inspired 
Constitution  of  1787  that  first  established 
us  as  a  nation.  I  want  it  to  abide ;  I  want 
it  to  impel  us  onward ;  I  want  the  Repub- 
lic  for  which  it  was  conceived ;  and  I  want 
the  Republic  governed  in  America,  under 
the  Constitution. 


THE  NATIONAL  CONSCIENCE 

'A.  MESSAGE  FOE  ALL  AMEBICAN3 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE  NATIONAL  CONSCIENCE 

THE  conservation  of  human  resource  is 
even  more  important  than  the  conserva 
tion  of  material  resource ;  but  I  desire  to 
call  your  attention  to  the  fact  that  one 
depends  a  great  deal  on  the  other,  and 
that  the  two  form  a  benevolent  circle. 
This  fact  is  forgotten  by  many  persons. 
On  the  one  hand,  there  are  those  with  a 
strong  sentiment  to  improve  the  con 
ditions  of  the  less  fortunate  or  by  a  policy, 
even  more  wise,  to  prevent  the  develop 
ment  of  unjust  social  conditions  or  low 
standards  of  health  and  education,  and  to 
maintain  our  position  as  a  land  of  equal 
opportunity.  So  fixed  do  some  of  their 
297 


298  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

eyes  become  on  the  human  resources  of 
America  and  on  occasional  misery  and 
suffering,  that  they  even  become  impa 
tient  with  those  who  are  working  to  build 
up,  by  industry,  wholesome  business 
enterprise  and  productivity,  the  material 
resources,  and,  consequently,  the  stand 
ards  of  living  of  our  people. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  other  per 
sons  who,  in  the  main,  I  believe,  are  not 
heartless  or  selfish  but  who  are  so  intent 
on  their  tasks  of  manufacturing  and  com 
merce,  driven  perhaps  by  that  impulse 
for  creation  which  is  so  often  misinter 
preted  as  mere  money-hunger,  that  they 
forget  that  the  men,  women  and  children 
about  them,  sometimes  in  their  employ, 
are  not  mere  commodities  and  are  not 
even  mere  machines  to  be  consumed,  worn 
out,  treated  without  love  and  tossed  aside, 
but  are  human  beings  whose  welfare  in 
the  end  is  so  intertwined  with  that  of 
every  other  human  being  that  the  imper- 


THE  NATIONAL  CONSCIENCE  299 

f  ections,  the  poor  health,  the  neglected  old 
age,  the  abused  childhood,  the  failure  of 
motherhood  in  any  one  of  them  becomes 
an  injury  and  a  menace  to  us  all. 

We  must  bring  together  the  broadened 
consciences  of  those  who  concentrate  their 
attention  upon  our  business  and  our  great 
enterprises  on  the  one  hand  and  see  only 
the  vision  of  prosperity,  and  on  the  other, 
those  who  find  in  their  hearts  and  minds 
no  vision  but  that  of  raising  the  standard 
of  health  and  happiness  of  less  fortunate 
human  beings,  where  such  standards  have 
fallen  below  those  which  all  Americans 
wish  to  see  enjoyed  by  all  Americans. 

Service  to  America, — that  must  be  the 
spirit  of  all  our  citizenship — Service,  a 
willingness  to  serve  intelligently,  to  train 
for  humane  service,  to  cleave  to  an 
idealism  of  deeds  and  honest  toil  and  sci 
entific  accomplishments,  rather  than  to 
serve  by  mere  words. 

I  believe  this  spirit  can  be  fostered  best 


300  OUR  COMMON  COUNTRY 

by  uniting  America.  I  believe  it  is  best 
served  by  wiping  away  distinctions  of 
class,  creed,  race  or  occupation  which  sep 
arate  Americans  from  Americans. 

I  say,  let  us  awake  the  conscience  and 
intelligence  of  the  social  reformer  and 
even  of  the  discontents,  and  the  agitators 
who,  sometimes,  with  fine  zeal  for  the 
good  of  mankind,  nevertheless  go  too  far 
and  do  gross  harm  to  mankind  by  spread 
ing  the  idea  that  productivity,  a  day's 
honest  work,  American  business,  and 
commerce  are  somehow  the  symbols  of 
evil,  of  oppression,  of  selfishness.  These 
are  not  symbols  of  evil,  nor  are  business 
and  industry,  expressing  the  toil  of  head 
and  hand,  the  enemies  of  man's  welfare. 
They  are  the  sources  of  man's  welfare. 

We  must  awaken  the  conscience  of  the 
ignorant  and  the  misguided  to  the  fact 
that  the  best  social  welfare  worker  in  the 
world  is  the  man  or  woman  who  does  an 
honest  day's  work.  We  must  awaken 


THE  NATIONAL  CONSCIENCE  301 

their  conscience  to  recognize  that  Amer 
ican  business  is  not  a  monster,  but  an 
expression  of  God-given  impulse  to  cre 
ate,  and  the  savior  and  the  guardian  of 
our  happiness,  of  our  homes  and  of  equal 
opportunity  for  all  in  America.  What 
ever  we  do  for  honest,  humane  American 
business,  we  do  in  the  name  of  social 
welfare. 

But  it  is  equally  true  that  we  must 
awaken  the  conscience  of  American  busi 
ness  to  new  interest  in  the  welfare  of 
American  human  beings.  It  is  not 
enough  for  America  that  her  business  and 
commerce  shall  be  honest ;  they  must  also 
be  humane.  Men,  women,  and  children  of 
America  are  not  commodities.  To  treat 
them  as  commodities  is  not  only  to  forget 
the  responsibility  we  owe  to  the  brother 
hood  of  man,  but  also  it  is  to  be  blind  to 
the  fact  that  American  business  can  not 
flourish  nor  the  material  prosperity  of 
America  be  built  upon  a  firm  foundation 


302  OUK  COMMON  COUNTKY 

until  by  just  such  work  as  by  pro 
tection  of  health,  by  education,  by  the 
preservation  of  wholesome  American 
motherhood  and  vigorous  and  happy 
American  childhood,  and  a  national 
humane  spirit  finding  expression  in 
enactment  of  law  when  need  be — we 
insure  the  welfare  of  our  human 
resources. 

The  belief  which  I  would  like  to  send  to 
all  Americans  is  my  belief  that  we  can  not 
have  the  fulness  of  America  until  all  of 
us  turn  again  to  love  of  toil  and  love  of 
production,  to  respect  for  honest  organ 
ization  of  effort  and  to  a  willingness  to 
put  all  our  shoulders  to  the  wheel.  But 
with  it  goes  my  belief  that  we  can  not  have 
all  that  love,  and  all  that  respect,  and  all 
that  willingness  until  throughout  the 
organization  of  our  industry  and  com 
merce  there  runs  the  flow  of  love  of  man. 

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